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PSYCHOLOGY. 



AN INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY. 



BEING A. BRIEF TREATISE 



ON 



INTELLECT, FEELING AND WILL 

By E. Janes, a. m. 



REVISED EDITION. 

W. B. Hardy, Oakland, Cal. 

BAKER and TAYLOR, 

9 Bond St., New York. 

1885. 



Lj t> 



1897 



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COPYRIGHT, 1884, 

By- BJANBS, Oakland, Cal. 



PACIFIC PRESS, 

Printers, Electrotyp.ers, and Binders. 

lath and Castro Sts., } j 5 2 9 Commercial St., 

Oakland. ) 1 San Francisco 



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PREFACE. 



My purpose in preparing this book has been to furnish something which 
might be adapted to the use of college classes, and at the same time useful 
' to thoughtful readers in general, who may desire to review the elements of 
Psychology and Metaphysics, or bring down their acquaintance with these 
subjects to a more recent period. I was led to see the need of such a 
work by actual experience in teaching. The existing text-books were 
unsatisfactory to me for various reasons. 

Some are too large for use as text-books, others so small as to give no 
adequate idea of the extent of the subject. Some are too abstruse and 
difficult in style and matter, others display no familiarity with the recent, 
especially the German, literature of the subject. Some are too one-sided, 
either as giving only the peculiar views of the writers, or as neglecting 
important parts of the subject. Some are ill-proportioned, some are ill- 
arranged, some are unsound in doctrine. 

In the preparation of the present work, a serious attempt has been made 
to keep in mind and avoid these defects. I have had the advantage of 
testing large parts of it by actual experiment with young students of the 
subject, whose suggestions, generally unconscious, have been valuable to 
me at many points. 

The first part, "The Intellect," has been already before the public 
nearly a year, and the very favorable opinions which have reached me, 
from the best sources, encourage me to hope that I have not wholly failed 
in my purpose, and that the completed work may also receive the approba- 
tion of those best qualified to judge. Attention is requested to the follow- 
ing features of the book: — 

I. It is small, as all text-books should be; but this brevity is attained, 
not by leaving out important parts of the subject, or by omitting adequate 
reference to its literature, but by condensation of style and carefully studied 
arrangement and proportion of treatment. Yet clearness has been aimed 
at, equally with condensation; obscurity, prolixity, and abstrusity are alike 

(iii) 



iv Preface. 

out of place in an elementary treatise. Moreover, in treating those parts 
of the subject which require illustration by examples, but a few of these 
have been given in each case, selected from the best. A vast mass of such 
material has been accumulated in the easily accessible and popular works 
of Carpenter, Maudsley, Ribot, Sully, Taine, etc., not to speak of more 
special treatises. A text-book should not be burdened with many of these. 
The teacher can read to the class his own selection of them, and will find 
new material constantly in current literature. 

Thus the book is small enough to be read through by a college class in 
one term, and yet, I believe, large enough to contain a fair introduction to 
the study of philosophy, and give the attentive student some idea of the 
literature of the subject. 

2. The arrangement is progressive, beginning with the Senses, ad- 
vancing to Perception and Consciousness, and thus gradually approaching 
the metaphysical questions involved in Psychology. The Nature of the 
Soul and the Mind of the Lower Animals are postponed until the phenom- 
ena of Intellect have been studied. How much metaphysics ought to be 
introduced into an elementary treatise, is one of the most puzzling ques- 
tions that an author has to deal with. In my view, it is chiefly as an in- 
troduction to Philosophy that Human Psychology is an important study. 
It is the best stepping-stone to Philosophy because it is not merely the 
science of nerve currents and of the association of ideas, but the science 
of Mind and its necessary relations. My plan, therefore, has been to join 
the two in a progressive arrangement, with a little Logic added. 

3. Quotations are freely made from the highest authorities of differ- 
ent schools, but none are treated as infallible. The " Dictate" from the 
lectures of Lotze, published after his death and containing his maturest 
opinions, have been found very valuable. Drbal's " empirische Psychol- 
ogic" has been of great service, though not often quoted. The works of 
Hamilton, Porter, Spencer, and Bain have, of course, been constantly in 
my hand. 

4. The Historical Sketch, though very brief, is intended to show the 



Preface. v 

great fact, that Philosophy is continuous and progressive, and familiarize 
the student with a few of the greatest names in its literature. A full 
account of the opinions of great Philosophers would be often too abstruse 
and always too prolix for such a work, but much is gained if interest in 
them can be excited, and the way pointed out for further study of them. 

5- Far more space than is usual has been given, in proportion, to 
Feeling and its derivatives, and the Will has been discussed somewhat in 
detail. In both these departments it is hoped that greater clearness and 
better arrangement have been attained than in previous text-books. 

Due credit has been given for whatever has been borrowed, I believe, 
except in the case of the Idea of the Comic, which was suggested to me 
by a friend whose name I am not at liberty to mention. The Theory of 
Beauty is, so far as I am aware, entirely original; but I well know that 
unconscious plagiarism is easy and common. 

If this book shall be of service in making the study of Philosophy easier 
and more attractive, I shall feel amply repaid for all my labor. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Philosophy, its Nature, Necessity, and Value 5 

Philosophy, Definitions and Divisions of 9 

Psychology Defined and the Term Defended 1 1 



INTELLECT. 

PRESENTATIVE POWER. 

Classification of the Mental Powers 13 

Sensation, Definitions of 15 

Sensation in the Lower Animals and in Man 17 

Sensations Classified . 20 

1 'erception Defined 22 

'1 HE SENSES. 

Sense of Smell 25 

Sense of Taste 27 

Sense of Hearing 30 

Sense of Sight, the Eye Described. . . . 33 

Perceptions of Sight and Color 37 

Perceptions of Form and Direction 39 

Perceptions of Distance and Solidity 43 

Binocular Vision, the Pseudoscope 47 

Sense of Touch 49 

Muscular Sensation 52 

TOPICS CONNECTED WITH SENSATION. 

Localization of Sensations 55 

Illusions and Hallucinations 58 

Feeling in Sensation 59 

Attention 64 

Qualities of Matter in Perception 67 

Sir W. Hamilton on the Qualities of Matter 71 

Substance and Attribute 73 

Consciousnkss, in Man and the Lower Animals 74 

Authority of Consciousness, etc 80 

Uses of the Term Consciousness 83 



2 Contents. 

NECESSARY ELEMENTS IN PERCEPTION. 

Space, Two Great Theories of 85 

Spencer, Kant, Herbart, Lotze, Hamilton, etc 88 

Time, Different Views Concerning 92 

Schopenhauer's Parallelisms , . . . 96 

Causation, Necessity of the Idea Defended 97 

Theories of Hume, Brown, and Mill 101 

Monadology and Pre-existent Harmony of Leibnitz 107 

Teleology and Teleophobia no 

Identity and Similarity, Lotze, Spencer, etc 112 

Remarks on "Intuitive Ideas," etc 117 

Spencer's " Psychogenetical Hypothesis" 119 

Enumeration of " Necessary Elements" 121 

" Regulative Faculty" 122 

Criteria of First Principles , 123 

Perception, Completed Doctrine of . . 125 

Perception, Theories of 126 

HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

Plato, Aristotle, and the Schoolmen 129 

Descartes, Leibnitz, Herbart, Lotze, etc 131 

Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Brown, Mill, etc. , 136 

Bain, Spencer, Fiske, etc 142 

Reid, Hamilton, Porter J44 

REPRESENTATIVE POWER. 

Memory, Divisions of, True Nature of 147 

Diseases of, Mystery of 151 

Association of Ideas 1 54 

Dreams, Cause, and Nature of 159 

Somnambulism, Hypnotism, etc 161 

Imagination, Varieties and Nature of 163 

REASONING POWER. 

Definitions of Reason and Reasoning 171 

Judgment, the Power of Discrimination 172 

The Concept, A Mental Product 174 

Reasoning, Deduction, the Syllogism 180 

Induction 185 

Uniformity of Nature 187 

CONCLUDING TOPICS. 

The Lower Animals, Intelligence of 191 

Their Mental Life, Associative and Instinctive 193 

Beast Minds and the Human Mind 197 

Nature of the Mind 198 

" Series of Sensations" Theory 199 

Lotze on Materialism 201 

" Thought- Stuff " Theory, Brain and Mind 203 

Comparison with the Lower Animals 205 

Metempsychosis, Location of the Soul, etc 206 



Contents. 



FEELING. 

PRELIMINARIES. 

Definitions, Feeling, Pleasure, Pain 208 

Nomenclature, Feeling, and the Feelings 209 

Classification of the Feelings 210 

Feeling and Sensation 212 

Feeling and Intellect 213 

1 PLEASURE AND PAIN. 

Physiology of Pain and Pleasure 214 

Philosophical Formula of Pleasure and Pain , 216 

Feelings of the Different Senses 219 

Digression on Feeling in Music 221 

.ESTHETICS. 

Beauty not Mere Pleasure of the Senses 224 

Beauty Intellectual, the True Theory 225 

Confirmations of Our Theory of Beauty 227 

-Beauty not Wholly in Expression 230 



EMOTION. 

Emotion and Reflex Movements 232 

Expression of Emotion, Spencer and Darwin 233 

Curious Experiments and Theories 234 

Fear, Defined and Described 236 

Anger or Defensive Emotion 237 

Grief and Joy, Expectation, Wonder, etc 238 

Laughter, Herbert Spencer's Explanation 2^0 

The Comic, as a Mental Feeling 240 

APPETITE. 

Natural and Artificial Appetites 244 

DESIRE. 

The Term Desire Defined and Limited 246 

Desire of Property and Power 247 

Desire of Knowledge 24S 

THE AFFECTIONS. 

Natural Affections, Love, Sympathy, and Self-Love 250 

Love, Altruism, Benevolence, etc 251 

Sympathy, Physical and Mental 253 

Self-Love and Selfishness 255 

Moral Affections 257 



4 Contents. 

WILL. 

DEFINITIONS AND DISTINCTIONS. 

Will and Spontaneity 260 

Volition, Different Meanings of 261 

Executive Volition 263 

Generic and Specific Volitions 265 

Motives, Objective and Subjective 268 

Motive as Cause 270 

Motive as End, Strength of Motives 272 

Conflict of Motives 273 

Desire, as Related to Will , 274 

V FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 

Freedom and Causation , 278 

Freedom and the Soul 285 

Freedom and God's Foreknowledge 288 

Direct Arguments for Freedom 288 

Testimony of Consciousness 290 

Uniformity of Human Action 291 

Po ver of Rational Conduct 293 

Limitations of Freedom 294 



INTRODUCTION. 



PHILOSOPHY is the science of first principles, that is, the 
principles which underlie all science and all knowledge. 
Though often derided by those who say, " Let us study 
phenomena, and leave abstractions to take care of them- 
selves," philosophy is yet justified even by these ungrateful 
children, for they, too, are constrained, even unconsciously, to 
resort to metaphysical principles, and have each a philosophy 
of his own. 

" The adepts in any of the special sciences never come to a 
full understanding of their own subjects of inquiry without 
encroaching on metaphysical ground, and even our physicists 
nnd themselves studying and teaching metaphysics unawares." 
(Bowen.) " We are compelled in every explanation of natural 
phenomena to leave the sphere of sense, and pass to things 
which are not objects of sense, and are defined by abstract 
conceptions." (Helmholtz.) 

Indeed, the most characteristic conceptions of modern 
physical science, evolution, development, morphology, con- 
servation of energy, correlation of forces, pangenesis — all are 
philosophical ideas, not subject to observation. "When the 



6 The Intellect. 

doctrine of morphology was first explained to Schiller, he 
exclaimed, ' This is not an observation, but an idea.' " " The 
fundamental ideas of modern science are as transcendental as 
any of the axioms of ancient philosophy." (Lewes.) "The 
highest generalizations of physical research bring us face to 
face with certain conceptions which are purely ideal and 
rational, that is, metaphysical ideas. Such are the ideas of 
substance, cause, force, life, order, proportion, law, purpose, 
unity, identity." 

Philosophy, then, is a necessity of the human mind; even 
those who assail it do so with its own weapons. "Aristotle 
long ago remarked that we are compelled to philosophize in 
order to prove that philosophy itself is illusory and vain." 
(Bowen.) Many modern scientific writers "are endeavoring to 
substitute for philosophy proper a species of speculative 
physical science, in which, however, careful analysis will always 
detect an unsuspected residuum of purely metaphysical prin- 
ciples." (Cocker.) 

Philosophy may therefore be said to be a defence of funda- 
mental truth. Errors in science, in ethics, in theology, in 
government, in legislation, are usually founded on abstract 
principles, assumed, perhaps unconsciously, without proof, or 
without the application of the criteria of truth. To detect and 
expose such errors requires us to recur to first principles, and 
establish them on firm and reasonable bases, to define those 
fundamental truths without which science and reasoning are 
alike impossible. The science of geometry depends on the 
abstract conception of space, arithmetic on number, law on 
right, ethics on duty, physics on cause, esthetics (the science of 
criticism) on beauty. 

In English the word philosophy is often used in connection 
with the names of the sciences, as philosophy of geometry, 
philosophy of physics, of law, of education, of art, etc. This 



Introduction. 7 

does not imply that each of these subjects is a branch of 
philosophy, nor that each has within itself a different kind of 
philosophy, but denotes the abstract principles, the meta- 
physical ideas of each science or subject, as philosophically 
determined. 

Philosophy may thus be defended as a delightful pursuit 
and exercise of the mind. As Moliere's M. Jourdain was 
delighted to find that he had been talking prose all his life, so 
it is very pleasant for an acute mind to find that the questions 
and difficulties which naturally arise within itself have been 
experienced, discussed, and answered by other such minds in 
all the ages. To many minds the pursuit of knowledge is the 
highest of all pleasures; much more, then, is there attractiveness 
in the highest kind of knowledge, in pure science, where ulti- 
mate truth is sometimes difficult and disputed, but, when found 
and proved, embraces all being in its scope, and brings 
together all the sciences in a fascinating unity. 

Philosophy, besides being necessary and valuable for its 
own sake, is useful: — 

1. For training the mind to a philosophical temper, a 
candid love of truth, a calm confidence in itself. " There is a 
philosophic spirit which is far more valuable than any limited 
acquirements of philosophy; ... a spirit which is quick to 
pursue whatever is within the reach of human intellect, 
but which is not less quick to discern the bounds that 
limit every human inquiry; . . . which knows how to dis- 
tinguish what is just in itself from what is merely accredited 
by illustrious names; . . . adopting a truth which no one has 
sanctioned, and rejecting an error, of which all approve, with 
the same calmness as if no judgment were opposed to its own; 
. . . yet applauding gladly whatever is worthy of applause in 
a rival system, and venerating the very genius which it demon- 
strates to have erred." (Dr. T. Brown.) 



8 The Intellect. 

2. For counteracting some injurious tendencies of the cur- 
rent devotion to physical studies. " The utility of metaphy- 
sics rises in proportion to the progress of the natural sciences, 
and to the greater attention which they engross." (Sir W. 
Hamilton.) The natural tendency of exclusive attention to 
any one class of studies is toward a narrow-minded dogmatism. 
In these times physical studies need no recommendation; they 
are forced upon the attention of every person who thinks or 
studies at all. There is no danger that physics will be neg- 
lected for philosophy, but quite the opposite. A symmetrical 
culture demands that some attention be paid to the first prin- 
ciples of knowledge, the nature of reasoning, the limitations of 
the mind, the existence of the soul and God. 

3. For developing intellectual power. "The intellect" 
says Aristotle, " is perfected not by knowledge but by activity." 
Says Malebranche, ' : If I held truth captive in my hand I 
should open my hand and let it fly, in order that I might again 
pursue and capture it." " Energy," says Hamilton, " is the 
means by which our faculties are developed. All profitable 
study is a silent disputation, an intellectual gymnastic. . . . 
It is this condition, imposed upon the student, of doing every- 
thing himself, that renders the study of the mental sciences the 
most improving exercise of intellect." But it is not only the 
power of abstract thought which is developed and strengthened 
by the study of philosophy; clearness and accuracy of thought 
and of language are cultivated by these studies as by no others;, 
and only those accustomed to philosophical discussions can 
appreciate the great scarcity of these all-important qualities in 
the world of thought and literature. 

The term metaphysics is often used as the equivalent of 
philosophy; indeed, some writers formally define the one term 
by the other. The best and most recent usage, however, tends 
to restrict the term metaphysics to a more narrow province. 



Introduction. 9 

Philosophy is, in this usage, a more general term, covering all 
study of abstract principles. The term science was formerly 
much used in the same signification, and the science of any 
thing was said to be the knowledge of its principles and causes. 
But science is now generally used to denote the knowledge of 
phenomena, experimentally ascertained. Thus we have the 
"sciences" of botany, of mineralogy, consisting almost en- 
tirely of classification and description; and even the " science 
of psychology" is sometimes understood to mean the mere 
description and classification of the phenomena of the senses 
and the intellect. The term empirical psychology is also used 
for this, the concrete, and rational psychology for the abstract 
or metaphysical part* of this science. 

According to Lotze, the problem of philosophy is to bring 
the separate departments of thought into unity and connection, 
and especially to investigate those ideas which are principles 
of judgment in life and in the various sciences. And the term 
philosophy means either the investigation which has this end 
in view, or the systematic presentation of the results so obtained. 
(Dictate, Logik, etc., §88.) 

Lotze also says that metaphysics has for its aim to reconcile 
all the contradictions into which we are led by unscientific 
thought and by the separate pursuit of the different sciences. 
He divides metaphysics into three parts, (1) ontology, which 
asks, what are being, existence, action, etc.; (2) cosmology, 
which asks, what are space, time, motion, etc.; (3) rational 
psychology, which treats of the connection between the ob- 
jective world and the spiritual world, or the problem of knowl- 
edge. (Dictate, Metaphysik, §§1, 6.) 

Logic, which discusses the principles of reasoning, ethics, 
which discusses the principles of obligation, and theology 
proper, which discusses the being and attribute:; of God, an:- 
often called departments of philosophy. 



io The Intellect. 

There is a tendency in some quarters to use the term Philo- 
sophy in a restricted sense, nearly equivalent to Ontology. By 
these writers Philosophy is denned as the "Science of the Ab- 
solute," the "Science of Being," the "Investigation of those 
principles on which all knowledge and all Being ultimately 
rest." We approve rather of the following definitions. 

Plato calls Philosophy a "Sentinel on the boundaries of the 
sciences, fixing and preserving their limits, uniting and demon- 
strating, and in all morally purifying." Aristotle denned it as 
"A knowledge of things by their causes," and again, "The sci- 
ence of Truth, derived from principles." Among the most re- 
cent writers,Ulrici says that Philosophy is "The science of sci- 
ences;" Calderwood, "A rational explanation of things existing 
and of things occurring;" Ferrier, "The attainment of truth by 
the way of the reason;" and Lotze considers it as a reconciling 
power among the sciences, furnishing those general conceptions 
which are indispensable for them all. 

Definitions. 

A few necessary definitions will be given here, but we pre- 
fer, in general, to explain terms when they occur. 

Psychology is the Science of Mind. Obviously, then, the 
extent of the meaning of the term Psychology will de- 
pend on that given to the term Mind. Those who hold the 
mind to be nothing more than a function of the brain, or 
a series of sensations, will define Psychology as the science 
of the action of the brain and nervous system, or of sensa- 
tions, with their combinations and derivations. But those 
who hold, as we do, that mind is a spiritual agency, and 
that the human mind contains a higher principle than that 
of the lower animals, find in psychology a higher department, 
concerned with the various metaphysical questions which 
are inseparable from the study of this higher power of thought. 



Introduction. ii 

This last department may be called Rational Psychology, and 
the former Empirical Psychology. But we believe that these 
two departments cannot profitably be entirely separated. 

Human Psychology is the science of the mind of man. Yet 
though our present subject is the human mind, frequent com- 
parisons will be made with the mind of the brutes, and explan- 
ations and arguments drawn from thence will by no means be 
excluded. 

Comparative Psychology is a description of the mental 
phenomena of the lower animals, so called because it neces- 
sarily involves comparison of those animals with each other 
and with man. It has not, as yet, however, proved a very 
fruitful science, since the nature and limits of instinct, associa- 
tion, and reason in them are doubly in dispute, first in them- 
selves, and again as involved in the great debates concerning 
human intelligence. 

Psychology is the best term to designate the science of 
mind, for the following reasons. 

i. It has long been in use in other languages. In Latin it 
can be traced as far back as 1594. In German and French it 
is said to have been in use over two centuries. 

2. It covers the exact field intended, excluding neither the 
metaphysical conditions of cognition, nor comparisons with 
the lower animals, nor descriptions of the senses and feelings. 

3. It corresponds with many other names of sciences, The- 
ology, Physiology, Philology, Archaeology, Anthropology, etc., 
and, like them, forms an adjective in -cal, an adverb in -cally. 

Science is accurate knowledge, systematically arranged. 
The term Science is used by many as including physical and 
natural science only. Such a restriction of its meaning is en- 
tirely unwarranted. Any branch of knowledge becomes a sci- 
ence when its principles are to some extent agreed upon, and a 
body of facts can be shown to be reduced to order and consis- 



12 • The Intellect. 

tency by those principles. Logic, Ethics, Theology and Psy- 
chology are as truly sciences as Geology or Chemistry. 

Mind is that which knows, feels, and wills. The reality and 
nature of the agent of these peculiar phenomena can better 
be discussed after we have studied the phenomena, and ar i 
therefore reserved until then. This three-fold power of the 
mind, to know, to feel and to will, is usually called by three 
distinct names, Intellect, Feeling and Will. It is not meant by 
this that the mind is divided into three departments, whose ac- 
tivities are separately carried on. In fact, every act of the mind 
involves all these great divisions of the mental powers. For 
example, the mind, acting as Intellect, knows some external 
object; the mind, acting as Feelings at the same time expe- 
riences pain, pleasure, disgust, or interest, excited by some 
relation of the object; while the mind, acting as Will, chooses 
to what part of the object, or which one of several objects, the 
attention shall be directed. 

And it is a mistake to suppose that philosophers have gene- 
rally committed the error of dividing the mind into separate 
organs or parts. Scarcely a work on the subject can be found 
which does not contain a caution on this point. But for the 
purposes of discussion, it is necessary to adopt some division of 
the powers of the mind, and some system of names for them. 

We accordingly adopt the ordinary classification and nomen- 
clature, because they are well known and are sufficiently con- 
venient, not because we think them entirely free from objec- 
tions and difficulties. 

Intellect, i eeling and Will are therefore the titles of the 
main divisions of the present work. The first of these will be 
further subdivided into three "faculties" or "powers," called, 
respectively, the Presentative or Cognitive, Representative or 
Reproductive, and Reasoning Powers. These terms will be 
discussed each in its proper place. 



THE INTELLECT. 

PART I. 

PRESENTATIVE POWER. 



As a preparation for the discussion of the first great division 
*of the powers of the mind, the Intellect, we need to make a 
further subdivision of this intellectual activity into various de- 
partments or modes. The terms which we shall use in this 
connection are, Presentative Power, Representative Power and 
Reasoning Power. Here again we adopt the usual division, 
not because we consider it entirely unobjectionable, but bo- 
cause it is well known, convenient, and more useful than oth- 
ers which have been proposed in its place. 

Prof. A. Bain, for example, endeavors to reach a division 
from the opposite side, beginning with the principles of knowl- 
edge, which are, he says, Identity with its correlative Differ- 
ence, and Similarity with its correlative Dissimilarity. But he is 
forced, after all, to add a third thing, Retentiveness or memo- 
ry, which is by no means a principle parallel with the other 
two, but a "faculty" taken from the old division, which even 
he cannot, thus, wholly escape. Moreover, his arrangement 
leads him into numerous repetitions, several cross-divisions 
and some contradictions. We judge it to be far better to ad- 
here to the old method, classifying the powers of the mind, 
rather than the results of their action, or the ultimate elements 
of knowledge. But these mental powers are not to be viewed 



m The Intellect. 

as parts of the intellect, each of which may act alone, but in- 
separable forms of mental activity, discussed separately for the 
sake of conveniece. For example, in Perception the Intellect 
may be said to exert all its powers. Sensation must furnish the 
materials, but the very method of sensation, as we shall see, is 
discrimination, distinguishing between different states of the 
sense-organs, and discrimination is usually classed as a function 
of the Judgment, under the Reasoning Power. Perception, 
again, is inseparable from consciousness, and the method of 
this may be said to be discrimination, distinguishing between 
external objects and the Ego. Moreover, perception is to such 
an extent cultivated by experience, that practically, as we shall 
see, we never perceive without former perceptions being sup- 
plied by the memory, while the imagination very often comes 
in to construct the object in full which is really perceived only 
in part. Thus we shall be forced, on any system, to repeat our- 
selves occasionally, and to discuss separately things which nev- 
er actually occur in separation. 

Under the head of Presentative Power we shall discuss Sen- 
sation in general, and as distinguished from Perception; the 
Senses, in some detail; several connected topics, such as Lo- 
calization, Attention, the Qualities of Matter, Gonsciousness, 
etc.; the necessary or a priori elements involved in Perception, 
such as Space, Time, Causation, Identity, etc.; giving then a 
historical sketch of the doctrine of perception, with such other 
biographical and critical matter as may seem necessary. 



Sensation. 15 



SENSATION. 



Sensation is feeling occasioned by some state of the body, 
or by some impression upon the organs of sense by an external 
object. Thus it is a narrower term than Feeling. For exam- 
ple, grief, fear, joy, and anger, are feelings, but not sensations; 
the feeling of heat or cold, the pain of a wound, are sensations, 
and yet may be called feelings; but we also speak of sensations 
of light, color, sound, taste, etc., which can only with doubtful 
propriety be called feeling. And when sensation carries. with it 
the knowledge of an external object, that knowledge is called 
perception. For example, if I smell an apple, I merely, in the 
first place, experience a sensation of smell; but when I recog- 
nise this as the odor of an apple, by recalling my previous ex- 
periences of the same kind, or, especially, when I know it as 
an external object, and as an apple, by combining this sensa- 
tion with others, as of touch, taste, or sight, this is called Per- 
ception, the nature of which will be discussed hereafter. 

The method of sensation is discrimination. No sensation can 
occur unless there be discrimination between like and unlike, 
or between the same and different. If the same impression 
be continually made upon a sense-organ, there will be no sen- 
sation. If all objects ^ere of the same color, we should have 
no sensation of color. The roar of the cotton mill is not heard 
by the weavers; the smell of the tannery does not offend the 
tanner. In such cases constant indu criminative use probably 
produces a modification of the sensory apparatus, so that its re- 
ceptive power is dulled. On the other hand, constant discrimi- 
native use cultivates the organs, so that a smaller stimulus suffi- 
ces to occasion a sensation. A watch-maker or engraver has 
far more delicate sight and touch than other men. Blind per- 
sons have hearing and touch wonderfully developed. 



1 6 The Intellect. 

Different nerves respond to different stimuli; the nerve of the 
ear is not affected by light, nor that of the eye by sound, nor 
can either organ, by any mistake, bring into consciousness an 
impression appropriate to another, nor any hint of the process 
of sensation. A pain in the finger does not appear in consci- 
ousness as a decay of tissue, nor as an engorgement of the cap- 
illary vessels, nor as molecular vibration, nor as nerve vibra- 
tion, but as a pain. An impulse of sound-waves upon the ear 
does not reach the mind as a picture of a bell, nor as a vibra- 
tion of the air, nor as a process in the ear, or nerve, or brain, 
but as a sound. The result of the process of sensation is not 
an idea, nor an image, but a sensation. 

How the mind distinguishes these various impressions on the 
sense-organs and interprets them, 7 is unknown. "Search as we 
will," says Lotze, the nature of waves of light, we never discov- 
er any reason why they are seen as light, not heard as sound, 
and just as little why they are perceived as red, blue, or green." 

And a knowledge, however intimate, of the organs of sense, 
the brain, the nervous system, and their operations, can throw 
no light on sensation considered as a mental process. How it 
is that impulses or motions of the nervous system, occasioned by 
external objects, are taken up by the mind and transformed in- 
to knowledge, is utterly inexplicable. Philosophers of all 
schools declare the problem insoluble. Even materialists ad- 
mit that if we could trace all the movements of every molecule 
of the brain, we could still no more understand how a nerve- 
impulse occasions a state of consciousness than "the appear- 
ance-of the Djinn when Aladdin rubbed his lamp." (Huxley.) 
"A unit o£ feeling," says Herbert Spencer, "has nothing in 
common with a unit of motion." And Lotze says, "However 
we combine the motions of the nerve-atoms, it never becomes 
self-evident that the last will no longer be motion, but must 
necessarily pass over into sensation. Hence all efforts to de- 



Sensation. 17 

monstrate how it happens that physical motion passes over into 
sensation, are completely useless." (Dictate, Psychologic, 3.) 

The term Sensation is used by some writers to denote an im- 
pression on the sense-organs which does not reach conscious- 
ness. But this use of the word is confusing and misleading, 
and is not sanctioned by the best authorities, as may be easily 
shown by quotations from writers of widely different schools. 

"The sensation arises when the nervous process is transmitted 
through the nerves to the conscious center, often spoken of as 
the sensorium, the exact seat of which is still a matter of some 
debate." (Sully, Illusions, Chapter 3.) 

"Where action is perfectly automatic, feeling does not exist. . 
As the psychical changes become too complicated to be per- 
fectly automatic, they become incipiently sensational." (Herb- 
ert Spencer, Psychology, I. 478.) 

"Sensation is the feeling which is the result of a single im- 
pression on any part of the sensitive organism." (Calderwood, 
in the additions to Fleming's Vocabulary of Philosophy.) 

"Some physiologists, it is true, have spoken of sensation 
without consciousness; but it seems very desirable, for the sake 
of clearness aud accuracy, tc limit the application of the word 
to the mental change." (Carpenter, Mental Physiology, 148.) 
* The term "mental change," used here by Carpenter, means 
the same as "psychical change," used by Spencer, and does 
not imply that sensation is a function of the immaterial "soul," 
or mind alone, but rather includes the sensorium, or conscious 
center. It is not easy to decide at what exact point the activi- 
ty of the brain ceases, and that of the soul begins to be exclu- 
sive, especially in view of some facts concerning the mind of 
the lower animals. Hence we use the word Mind, to denote 
the whole power of sensation and perception, reserving the re- 
lation of soul and body until we have studied the phenomena 
called mental or "psychical." 



18 The Intellect. 



Sensation in the Lower Animals. 

Id discussing the intelligence of the lower animals, it is not 
easy to decide at what precise point, as we descend the scale 
of being, the term Sensation ceases to be appropriate. In the 
higher of those animls, such as the horse or dog, we must sup- 
pose that sensations are very similar to our own, and that some 
kind of dim consciousness exists. 

But in the lowest animals such a suppostion would plainly 
be extravagant. The oyster, for example, has from forty to two 
hundred pigment spots, called ocelli, and when a_ shadow falls 
on any of these ocelli, it closes its shell. Such an action can 
not be regarded as implying knowledge, or consciousness, or 
true sensation. All the facts concerning these ocelli compel 
us, rather, to conclude "that they are the medium of an auto- 
matic impulse." In certain annelida, according to Dr. Carpen- 
ter, such eyes are found in the tail, which seem to direct the 
movements of that part alone. These automatic actions of the 
lowest animals seem to correspond to those movements which, 
in the higher animals and in man, are called Reflex actions, 
such as coughing and sneezing, in which a slight irritation of 
the mucous membrane is followed by convulsive, involuntary 
motions. Probably breathing, the sucking of new-born infants, 
and the motions of the viscera, belong to the same class. 

Evolutionist writers regard such impressions as the rudiments 
of true sensation. Herbert Spencer says, "As soon as the or- 
ganism, feebly sensitive to a jar or vibration propagated through 
its medium, contracts itself so as to be in less danger from the 
adjacent source of disturbance, we perceive a nascent form of 
the life classed as psychical. (Psychology, I. 392.) 

He also describes "nascent mind" in the lowest animals, as a 
"confused sentiency, formed of recurrent phases of feeling." 



Sensation. 19 

The evolution of higher forms of mind is briefly described 
by Mr. Spencer as follows; "At a stage above this mind is prob- 
ably present, under the form of a few sensations, which, like 
those yielded by our own viscera, are simple, vague, and inco- 
herent. And from this upwards the mental evolution exhibits 
a differentiation of these simple feelings into the more numer- 
ous kinds which the special senses yield." "The skin, being 
the part immediately subject to the various kinds of external 
stimuli, necessarily becomes the part in which psychical chan- 
ges are originated. . . This sensitiveness, which forms the basis 
of psychical life, is in the beginning diffused uniformly over the 
whole surface. . . Continued differentiation and integration, 
concentrating the actions out of which psychical life is evolved, 
first on the surface of the organism, and afterwards on certain 
regions of that surface, afterwards on those most specialized 
parts of it constituting the organs of the higher senses, and fin- 
ally in minute parts of these parts, necessarily render the psy- 
chical life more and more distinct from the physical life, by 
bringing its changes more and more into serial order." (Psy- 
chology, I. 189, 400, 402.) 

Many of the lowest animals have no general nervous centers, 
but only local ganglia, with slight and indirect connections. 
The star-fish, for example, has a rudimentary eye, a spot sensi- 
tive to light, at the tip of each ray, by which the motions of 
the rays are chiefly guided. The annelida which have eyes in 
their tails have been referred to above. Sensation, in such ani- 
mals, must be different in kind, not simply in degree, from sen- 
sation in man, or even in the horse or dog. In such an animal, 
•true, conscious, sensation cannot occur. For such sensation is 
the act of an individual, a' unit. 

In man the brain is undoubtedly the organ of consciousness 
and individuality, and also of the power of combining sensa- 
tions into knowledge, called Perception. 



20 The Intellect. 

Classification of Sensations. 

Acts of Sensation, or Sensations, are sometimes divided into 
two kinds, called Subjective and Objective. The former are 
caused by some affection of the sense-organ itself, or by some 
condition of the mind. Thus, a dose of quinine may cause 
a ringing in the ears, a defect in the eye may cause spots to ap- 
pear on the page or landscape, a blow on the head makes one 
see stars, fear may cause one to see a ghost. 

The term Objective, though seldom required, may be used, 
by way of distinction, for all sensations not subjective. 

Other and more useful divisions are the following; — 

Sensations may be distinguished according to their nature 
in three different ways. 

i. According to their peculiar nature with reference to the 
object which occasions them; as, sensations of light, sound, 
smell, pain, heat, etc. This peculiarity is usually called quality. 

2. According to the strength of the occasioning impulse; as 
faint, moderate, intense. It is quite probable that the inten- 
sity of the sensation and the intensity of the exciting impulse 
do not vary in the same ratio. According to Weber, if the 
intensity of the sensation increases in an arithmetical ratio, 
that of the impulse must increase in a geometrical ratio. For 
example, a sound, to be twice as loud in sensation, must be 
occasioned by four times as violent an impulse. 

3. According to the peculiar nature of the sensation as 
agreeable, disagreeable, or indifferent. This peculiarity is 
called by the Germans tone. Bain calls it quality. 

Sensations may be again distinguished according to their con- 
tent, or significance, into internal and external, or bodily and 
mental. 

1. Internal sensations, or feelings, relate to the condition 
and needs of the body, and may be divided into local and 



Sensations. •. 21 

general. Local internal sensations involve only one or a few 
nerves, and are such as hunger, thirst, pain from a slight injury, 
tickling, sneezing, nausea, pricking caused by impeded circu- 
lation (foot-asleep), tingling caused by striking the nerve in 
the elbow (crazy-bone), etc. General internal sensations in- 
volve entire provinces of the nervous system, and are such as 
fatigue, exhilaration, shuddering, the depresssion of dyspepsia, 
spasm, cramp, the shock of a severe injury, etc. 

2. External sensations relate to impressions received from 
the outside world, and may be sub-divided into p-eneral and 
special. Special external sensations are those which involve 
special external organs, provided with short nerves called sen- 
sorial nerves, all situated within the skull. They are sight, 
hearing,' smell, and taste. General external sensations are those 
which depend upon nerves pervading the whole body, even 
the special sense-organs themselves. They are touch, heat 
and cold, motion or position of the muscles, pressure and re- 
sistance. 

It will be seen that the old division of five senses is very 
defective. If we are to speak at all of the five senses, how- 
ever, we may divide them into two classes, direct and indirect; 
those which receive impressions by direct-" contact with the 
external object, touch, taste, and smell; and those which re- 
ceive impressions through a medium, hearing and sight. 

The internal sensations are not of importance to our present 
purpose, and are sufficiently explained by physiology. We 
need only attend to those which, when interpreted and com- 
bined by the mind, convey to us impressions from the outside 
world. 

Before we discuss the different senses in detail we need to 
define and explain the term perception, so that we can speak 
intelligently of the perceptions of each sense under the appro- 
priate head. 



22 The Intellect. 

Sensation and Perception Distinguished. 

Perception differs from Sensation in that it is a higher activi- 
ty, is more intellectual in its nature, makes use of the results 
afforded by the latter, and always involves a recognition of the 
external world. Indeed, Perception is sometimes denned as 
knowledge of the external world. 

Writers of various schools agree, in general, in this definition. 
Lotze calls Perception "The power of the soul to localize its 
Sensations." Maudsley says it "groups or organizes several sen- 
sations into one idea." Bain calls it "Object consciousness," 
and "Object experience." Sir W. Hamilton defines it as the 
knowledge which the mind has of its body as extended, that is, 
as really existing, and also as affected in certain ways. 

It must be remembered that perception is knowledge of ob- 
jects, not of abstractions. Thus, we do not perceive Space, or 
Time, or distance, or color, or resistance; but we perceive ob- 
jects as extended, successive, distant, colored, resisting, etc., or, 
in other words, under space-relations, and time-relations, under 
contrasts of color, distance, form, weight, etc., as will be fully 
described hereafter. And the expression, "perception of dis- 
tance and solidity," found on a subsequent page, is employed 
as being the usual, * well-known phrase, not as being perfectly 
accurate. 

It should be noticed that sensationalist writers neglect per- 
ception, often not treating it separately, but including all that is 
meant by it under sensation and the association of sensations. 
This is unphilosophical and misleading, but is favorable to their 
theories of the mind, to which we shall return. 

The term Perception was formerly used in a far wider sense, 
including the whole intellect, and is still used figuratively to 
denote the apprehension of abstract truth. In Philosophy it 
was restricted by Reid to apprehension through sense alone, 



Perception. 23 

and is now generally used in this sense. Hence the term 
sense-perception, used by some, does not seem necessary, since 
all perception is understood to be sense-perception. 

We are obliged in English to use the verb " to perceive" in a 
somewhat figurative meaning, because the verb "to sense" is not 
in good usage. Thus we say, " I perceived a smell of musk," 
where we ought to be able to say, " I sensed a smell- of musk," 
or might correctly say, " I perceived musk by the smell." The 
verb "to sense," or some exact equivalent, is a term needed in 
English philosophy, in which confusion has sometimes arisen 
for the want of it. 

The product of perception is called a percept. A sensation 
of light may be produced by pressing on the eyeball or by an 
electric current, but this is not perception, nor its product a 
percept. When, however, a distant light excites a sensation of 
light through the eye, the mind perceives the light, through 
the sensation of light, and forms a percept of a light. Then, 
if other percepts be combined with this one, until the mind 
perceives, for example, a red lantern of globular form, this 
process is still called perception, but the completed result of 
the combination is called an object, or mental object. If the 
eye be color-blind, the knowledge derived from these sensa- 
tions may be defective; if the mind be inattentive, or under 
the influence of association, or prejudice, or excitement, the 
data of the senses may be misinterpreted, and false results be 
reached. A large dose of the drug santonine makes all objects 
appear yellow. 

Original or natural perception is the use of a single sense, 
without aid from experience or the assistance of the other 
senses. Cultivated or acquired perception is perception as 
corrected by experience and by the combination of different 
sensations. This is really a process of association. Thus, we 
have no natural perception of distance; but by walking or 



24 The Intellect. 

reaching out we establish connections between sensations, by 
which we ever after seem to perceive distance. Compound 
perceptions are those which are occasioned by a number of 
impulses of the same kind; as color from many rays of light, 
form from many impressions of direction, a musical note from 
many vibrations of the atmosphere. 

The complete presentation of an object is almost always ef- 
fected through many impressions of one sense or more than 
one. A star or a distant lamp is seen as a single point of 
light, and but one sensation is involved, unless it twinkles or 
changes its place so that we follow its motion with the eye. 
Ordinary objects, however, occasion more than one kind of 
sensations, or else a definite series of sensations of the same 
sense. These sensations, being of common origin, have co- 
herence among themselves in memory, so that if one, or some of 
them be experienced again or recalled in any way, the others 
are suggested, and the object, with all its sensible qualities, is 
perceived or remembered. For example; an orange occasions 
sensations of smell, color, form, touch, taste, and pressure. 
After these are firmly agglutinated by habit, any one of them, 
when repeated, may call up all the rest, and we may perceive 
the orange with all these qualities, or remember it as having 
them all, and not merely color, or odor, or form, alone. 

The senses of sight and touch are by far the richest in this 
kind of associations, and especially in connection with each 
other. This is very important, as we shall see, for the knowl- 
edge of form, distance, and solidity, the acquired perceptions 
of sight. It was upon this that Berkeley founded his theory of 
vision. 

The subject of association in general falls under the rep- 
resentative power, and the acquired perceptions of each sense 
are more naturally placed each under its own sense. 

The universal or necessary elements involved in sensation 



The Senses. 25 



THE SPECIAL SENSES. 

Before we can intelligently discuss the universal or necessary 
elements involved in perception, whether called a priori con- 
cepts, intuitive ideas, or by any other name, it will be necessary 
to examine the special senses and the perceptions belonging to 
them. But the detailed description of the organs of sense, the 
nerves and the brain, belongs to the science of physiology, and 
the explanation of the action of light, sound, heat, etc., on the 
organs, belongs to optics, acoustics, and other branches of phys- 
ics. We shall therefore describe somewhat briefly the so-called 
"impercipient senses," which are less important for psychology, 
but dwell at more length on the Sense of Sight, which is ex- 
tremely important for the study of Perception. 

We begin with the simplest and least complicated, and the 
one having, in itself considered, the least intellectual content. 

SENSE OF SMELL. 

The sense of smell is attached to a portion of the mucous 
membrane which lines the nostrils and nasal passages, called 
the pituitary membrane. Here is spread out a network of 
fine branching nerves which have the power of responding to 
certain chemical properties of some bodies. The excitation 
of the nerve is probably effected through the oxidation, that 
is, decomposition, of the molecules of the object, which 
must be presented in the form of a gas or fine powder, and 
carried by a current of air in respiration. Solid bodies in a 
state of fine powder are usually, however, so irritating as to cause 
sneezing and interfere with the -normal action of the sensorial 
nerve. Gases may also be irritating in the same way, as 
ammonia. Some refer this irritation to the sense of touch, 
(Bain), but it is more probably to be referred to an over- 



26 The Intellect. 

stimulation of those particular nerves which are adapted to 
transmit impulses due to chemical qualities. 

A gas or vapor may be exceedingly diffuse and yet produce 
a strong odor. A very small amount of matter from a volatile 
substance may give rise to sensation. It is said that a grain of 
musk will emit a strong odor for years without any perceptible 
diminution in weight. According to the experiments of 
Fick a. two-millionth of a milligram is sufficient to excite a 
sensation of smell. 

Sensations of smell require a longer time than any other for 
discriminative attention. When we wish to distinguish a faint 
odor or a new one, we " take a good sniff." Yet the organ 
soon becomes wearied and ceases to respond, if the same 
stimulus is long continued. A constant odor is not perceived. 
The tanner does not smell his tannery. Students in a close 
lecture room do not perceive the foulness of the air; but if 
one goes out for a moment into fresh airland then returns, he 
finds it overpowering. This shows also the necessity of con- 
trast, and goes to establish what we have said of discrimina- 
tion as the basis of all sensation. Smells can only be de- 
scribed by reference to our previous experience. The terms, 
pungent, nauseating, sweet, acrid, ethereal, fragrant, applied to 
smells, have no meaning except through experience. The 
same is plainly true of those which consist in comparisons, as, 
like a rose, like musk, etc. 

In general, substances which are useful for food and drink 
have agreeable smells, while those which are injurious have 
disagreeable ones. Hence this sense is far more acute in the 
lower animals than in man. The dog, however, though his 
smell seems miraculously acute, does not seem to distinguish 
smells, or even tastes, as disagreeable and agreeable. 

Some smells cause faintness in sensitive persons, and the 
sweetest perfume becomes sickening if too often repeated. 
" Non bene olet qui semper bene olet" (Martial.) 



Sense of Taste. 27 

The perceptions of this sense are entirely acquired. The 
mind knows sensations of smell only as in the nose, and re- 
ceives through them no knowledge whatever of the external 
world. Possibly from a number and variety of simple smells 
constantly changing, we might conclude, even if we had no 
other sense, that they had an external cause; but that would 
be inference, not perception. We refer smells to objects be- 
cause we are familiar with objects through the other senses. 
Smell itself can never inform us of the existence of anything 
but our own organism, as affected in some unknown way. 

SENSE OF TASTE. 

The sense of taste is attached to the upper surface of the 
tongue, the palate, and perhaps part of the pharynx. As 
these parts, especially the tip of. the tongue, are capable of 
delicate sensations of touch also, it is almost impossible to 
separate these from sensations of taste. This probably can be 
done only in one case, that of a strong odor admitted to the 
mouth, which gives a sensation of taste in the back part of the 
mouth, w T here the current of air converges, with no sensation 
of touch. 

The mucous membrane of these parts is studded with 
little papillae, thick-set at the tip of the tongue, which are sup- 
plied with nerves having the capacity of being excited by cer- 
tain chemical qualities of some bodies, when these are in a 
liquid state or dissolved in a liquid. No solid body can be 
tasted unless it is soluble in the saliva, and no substance can 
be tasted unless it is capable of passing through the mucous 
membrane of the papillae. The researches of Graham on 
dialysis, taken in connection with his remarkable investiga- 
tions on that condition of bodies called the colloid state, are 
of interest here. They go to show that nearly all bodies that 
can be tasted belong to the crystalloid class, not the colloid class. 
Now bodies of the colloid class do not penetrate one another 



28 The Intellect. 

freely, and animal membranes belong to this class. Hence 
starch, gum, albumen, gelatine, etc., have no real taste of their 
own, while crystalloid bodies, or those flavored with a crystalloid 
principle, are capable of exciting strong taste-sensations. (Bain, 
The Senses and the Intellect, 141.) 

The excitation of the nerves of taste is probably effected 
through oxydation, that is, decomposition of molecules of the 
body tasted. 

The number of adjectives that can be applied to tasces is 
larger than in the case of smells; tastes are more describable. 
Yet usually these descriptions amount to little more than com- 
parison with sensations previously experienced. 

The amount of matter required to occasion a sensation of 
taste is in some cases very small, yet far less small than occa- 
sions a sensation of smell. Valentin says that a fiftieth of a 
milligram of quinine is the least that can be tasted. The in- 
tensity of the taste depends not only on the nature of the 
object tasted, but also in part on the amount of matter brought 
in contact with the organ, and, partly, on contrast; and a suffi- 
cient time must be allowed for solution of a solid body in the 
saliva, in order that the sensation may accumulate its force. 

It is held by some authorities that there are three kinds of 
papillae, the real organs of taste, one for bitters, one for salts 
and one for acids. In general, those substances which are 
useful have pleasant tastes, while those which are injurious are 
disagreeable. The perceptions of taste, like those of smell, 
are all acquired. Sensations of taste tell us only of an exci- 
tation of the organ, nothing of the external world. Neither 
sense gives any information concerning the chemical proper- 
ties of bodies. After those properties have been learned by 
us in other ways and associated with certain tastes and smells, 
the taste or smell will recall that knowledge. It does not 
originate any such knowledge. " Sensations of taste and 
chemical properties are heterogeneous in nature." (Lotze.) 



Sense of Taste. 29 

The impossibility of separating sensations of taste entirely 
from those of touch, and the extreme delicacy of the sense of 
touch in the tip of the tongue, with the great mobility of the 
tongue, give an obstinate impression that we know the external 
world through taste. But a little reflection upon these facts 
will enable us to separate them in thought, and compel us to 
admit that taste is as entirely subjective as smell. 

In the case of these two senses, smell and taste, the object 
in- perception is not, strictly speaking, the same as that which 
excites the nerves by a peculiar impulse. What we actually 
smell and taste is small particles of the object, detached or 
volatilized, or dissolved in the saliva. What we perceive, by 
the aid of association and combination with the other senses, 
is, not these particles, but the object from which they come. 
We know nothing about the detached particles until science 
reveals them to us. When we smell an orange we have a sen- 
sation of a peculiar smell, occasioned by certain volatile parti- 
cles of matter; but, aided by previous experience or by the 
other senses, we know this smell to be the perfume of an 
orange; and this is acquired perception. What we perceive 
is the orange. The formation of these acquired perceptions 
is vastly assisted by the inseparable connection between taste 
and touch. 

These two senses, taste and smell, are the least intellectual 
of all the external senses. Taste is usually considered the 
least intellectual of all, that is, when taken by itself. " We 
are inclined to think that what are called the ignoble senses 
are wholly impercipient and would never, by the mere suc- 
cession of feelings, waken into consciousness the distinction 
between subject and object, or reveal their own organic seat." 
(Martineau.) 



30 The Intellect. 

sense of hearing. 

The organ of hearing is the external ear, with the exceed- 
ingly complex apparatus connected with it, the description of 
which belongs to physiology. 

Sound is due to waves of alternate condensation and rare- 
faction in the atmosphere, caused by the vibration of sonorous 
bodies, the further discussion of which belongs to physics. 
The waves of air affect the auditory nerve by causing com- 
pression of its filaments, after being transmitted through the 
internal parts of the organ. 

The most important distinctions in sensations of sound are 
intensity, pitch, and quality, or timbre. Sounds differ in in- 
tensity or loudness according to the amplitude of the vibra- 
tions of the sounding body, and consequent amplitude of the 
atmospheric waves. They differ in pitch according to the 
rapidity of those vibrations, rapid vibration being known in 
sensation as a high sound, and slow vibration as a low sound. 
Sounds are inaudible if their pitch is either too high or too 
low, and the range of audibility is said to be about ten octaves, or 
from twenty vibrations in a second to 38,000. The squeal of 
a bat is audible to some persons and not to others. The low- 
est notes of a pipe-organ are heard by some persons as separate 
beats or pulses of sound, not as musical notes, showing that 
noise is audible at a lower pitch than musical sounds. 

Noise and music differ as follows; a musical sound is caused 
by regular and continuous vibrations, and is comparatively 
rich in overtones; a noise is due to irregular and discontinu- 
ous vibrations, comparatively without overtones. Hence the 
human voice is between the two, and easily passes into 
music. When the articulation is a little drawled we call 
it sing-song; when the sounds are dwelt upon and prolonged 
with regularity, it is called singing, or music. 



Sense of Hearing. 31 

The differences of quality between different musical instru- 
ments or different voices are due chiefly to the varying richness 
of the overtones, and Helmholtz has shown that the vowel- 
sounds of language differ in the same way, in their overtones. 
Pure tones, without overtones, can hardly be produced, and 
are of insipid quality. Hence every single musical tone is in 
reality a complex harmony, and its richness depends upon the 
degree of its complexity. (On the overtones, etc., see Tyn- 
dall, On Sound) 

How different sounds affect the auditory nerves in different 
ways is unknown. Some conjecture that there is a different 
filament corresponding to each audible pitch, and thus the ear 
is a kind of key-board, and each of the overtones is separately 
heard and combined with the others in a kind of harmony. 
Others think that sounds differ in pitch because the elements 
of sensation differ in length. (Taine.) But this is only a re- 
statement of the problem. 

Sensations of sound do not, in primary, natural sensation, 
give any knowledge of anything outside the organ. It is only 
by combination with other senses, by cultivation, and by asso- 
ciation, that sounds come to suggest to us the object by which 
they are caused, with its various relations. If a sound is fa- 
miliar, we can tell something of its distance by its loudness or 
faintness. If it is entirely unknown, we cannot judge of it at 
all. 

The directions of sounds can be perceived to some extent 
through variations of intensity in the two ears, especially on 
revolving the head; if it is loudest when the ear is turned in a 
certain direction, we judge its source to be in that direction. 
In a dense fog the sound of the steam-whistle or fog-horn 
seems to come from the point whence we are expecting it to 
come, whatever that may be. But if on going in a certain 
direction, the sound increases in loudness, we judge its source 



32 The Intellect. 

to lie in that direction. The judgment of direction is at best, 
however, easily mistaken. This is the reason why ventrilo- 
quists so easily deceive us by directing our attention and ex- 
pectation in certain directions. It also explains why so many 
accidents occur in crowded channels in^oggy weather, in spite 
of the greatest caution. 

The discriminating power is capable of great cultivation, 
both with reference to musical sounds and articulate language, 
and even noises. The mind receives a vast number and variety 
of sensations through the ear. 

- The sounds of articulate language are only arbitrary sym- 
bols, whose meaning is laboriously learned by the mind. If 
the attention is directed strongly on the sounds, as in listening 
to a foreigner or a person with an unfamiliar brogue, we often 
miss the meaning and have to ask for a repetition. When we 
pay strict attention to the meaning we scarcely notice the in- 
dividual sensations of sound. 

Sensations of sound may be excited abnormally; certain 
drugs cause roarings in the ears; we seem to hear sounds in 
dreams. 

It is affirmed by some that the mind perceives the external 
world directly through the sense of hearing;. The following 
considerations will probably suffice to prove the negative. 

(i) The organ of sense does not in hearing, as in touch, 
come into direct contact with the object, but a medium, the 
air, must intervene and convey the vibration to the organ, a 
kind of instrument for adapting these vibrations to the sensory 
nerves. Yet there is no apparatus, as in sight and touch, for 
following the outline of an object and thus gaining percep- 
tion of form and solidity. (2) Moreover, if there were such 
an apparatus, its action would plainly not give pure percep- 
tions through sound, but acquired perceptions through 
the muscular sense of the movements and the different 



Sense of Hearing. 33 

positions of the organ, cultivated by memory, experience, 
and association. Indeed we can to a certain extent, as has 
been . said, vary the sensations of sound by moving the head 
and body and thus judge of the source of sound. But this is 
not an original or natural, but an acquired perception. 

" That knowledge of this kind is founded on experience 
only is obvious from the fact that when the usual or the as- 
sumed conditions or occasions of our knowledge are changed, 
we make mistakes in respect to the place, direction, and dis- 
tance of a sound, and that mistakes in respect to these lead to 
error in regard to the object which occasions it. . ... 
The humming of a mosquito may be mistaken for a distant 
cry of alarm or the sound of a trumpet. In such cases the 
sound must first be removed by our mistaken judgment to a 
greater distance, in order that it may be ascribed to a false oc- 
casion." (Porter, Human Intellect, 160.) " The knowledge 
of distance and direction of sounds is in reality an association 
between sounds and movements or muscular ideas." (Bain, 
The Senses and the Intellect, 362.) 

(3) Again, the sense of hearing cannot convey to us any 
knowledge of the external world under those modes which are 
called primary qualities of matter, and are held to be insepa- 
rable from the very being of matter, — extension, weight, etc. 
It is true that in order to produce a sound a body must have 
extension, hardness, weight, all the necessary qualities of mat- 
ter; but when we say that a sound which we have heard must 
have proceeded from a body having these qualities, that is in- 
ference, not direct perception. 

SENSE OF SIGHT. 

The eye is a camera obscura, provided with six muscles, by 
which it is rotated in all directions. It is furnished with a 
movable curtain in front, the eyelid, to exclude the light and 
ward off danger. It has an adjustable aperture for the ad- 



34 The Intellect. 

mission of light, the pupil, and a double-convex lens, of ad- 
justable convexity. It is provided with a receiving curtain, 
the retina, on which an inverted image of the object is de- 
picted, and which is a very complex structure, containing the 
terminations of a vast number of nerve-fibres, which convey 
impressions to the brain. 

The retina of the human eye has a small depressed spot 
which is more thickly set with nerve-terminations than the 
rest of the surface. Distinct vision of very small objects re- 
quires a discriminative power which is confined to this spot, 
but the retina is capable of receiving impressions of light, 
color, and direction, throughout a considerable segment of a 
sphere. Sixty degrees from the sensitive spot discriminative 
power is said to be one hundred and fifty times less than in 
that spot; that is, a body, in order to make a distinct impres- 
sion on that part of the retina must be one hundred and fifty 
times larger than to affect the sensitive spot. Yet a fainter 
light can be detected by the outside portions of the retina 
than by the central portion. Fixed stars" which cannot be 
seen directly in front can sometimes be seen by turning the 
head a little to one side. 

The sensitive spot of the retina, being necessary for minute 
and accurate vision, is evidently of vast importance for the in- 
tellectual culture and progress of the human race. (Le 
Conte, Sight.) Nearly all the rotation of the eyeballs, so 
conspicuous in man, is for the purpose of bringing this sensi- 
tive spot into range with some definite object, for accurate and 
careful vision. 

In most of the lower animals this spot is wanting. We may 
hence suppose that they receive equally clear impressions on a 
far larger part of the retina than men, that they use far less 
rotation of the eyeball, and that they are capable of far less 
discrimination of minute objects. All of these are confirmed 



Sense of Sight. 35 

by observation. A- cat can catch sight of a rat with extreme 
quickness, and follow its motions with wonderful closeness, 
since no motion of the eyeball need intervene to direct her 
movements, at least for moderate distances. But undoubtedly 
she could not see to split one of the hairs on the mouse's 
back, as many a man could do. A skittish horse seems to see 
objects in all directions, which his rider does not see, but as 
the horse does not see them clearly enough to recognize them, 
he is afraid of them. Such an animal always goes more 
steadily in a dark night. 

There is a limit to minuteness of vision, depending on the 
fineness of the, structure of the retina. According to Weber 
and Volkmann two bright lines must be separated by from one 
six-thousandth to one twelve-thousandth of an inch, in order 
to produce a double sensation. That is, if nearer together 
than this, they will be seen as one line. 

The organ of sight, like that of hearing, cannot come into 
contact directly with an object, but requires an intervening 
medium to convey the particular vibrations which occasion the 
sensation. This medium is a supposed elastic, imponderable 
fluid, the ether, whose vibrations are far more rapid, and are 
propagated at a far higher rate of speed than any others 
known to us, and striking upon the terminations of nerve- 
fibres at the back of the eye, occasion sensations of sight. 

Difference in color is due to difference in length of the light- 
waves, since all travel at the same speed. The vibrations 
which occasion the sensation of red color are the shortest and 
most rapid. How different rates of vibration occasion differ- 
ent sensations of color cannot be said to be well understood. 
The best conjecture is that there is a different kind of nerve- 
terminations for each of the primary colors, scattered all over 
the retina, by combination of which all sensations of color are 
formed. But microscopic examination discloses only two 



36 The Intellect. 

kinds of minute bodies making up the sensitive coat of the 
retina, while the primary colors are ordinarily supposed to be 
three in number. Recent investigations, however, tend to 
show that there are four primary colors, in two couples, each 
of two complementary colors. Each of the colors of a pair 
is supposed to cause an opposite action in the same sensitive 
body of the retina, thus reducing the kinds of sensitive bodies 
required to two, which corresponds with the theory given 
above, which is known as the view of Hering. 

According to Le Conte, the phenomena of color-blindness 
confirm this view. A person who is genuinely color-blind 
(not merely indiscriminative) is deficient in the red-green 
couple, while the yellow-blue couple is unimpaired. (Sight, 
62.) The ' phenomena of subjective complementary colors 
also favor this view. If you look intently at a surface of 
bright red, then at a white surface, the latter seems to have a 
greenish tint. 

Other colors pair themselves also, in such a way as to favor 
the theory of two contrary pairs of colors, and two kinds of 
sensitive bodies in the retina. Possibly also what are called 
negative images may help support this view. If you look out 
of a window, in the sunlight, and then shut your eyes, you 
seem to see the window still, with light and shade reversed; 
the sash appears brilliant, and the panes of glass appear dark. 
White and black may be opposites in their retinal effect, in the 
■ same way as red and green. The details of these inquiries 
belong to optics and physiology; we are concerned with them 
now only in their relation to the mind. 

This theory only shows, however, how the ether-vibrations 
may excite corresponding vibrations in the brain, and does 
not at all touch the mystery of how the sensation is produced; 
indeed the process in the brain is probably still more compli- 
cated, for the ether-waves do not seem to cause nerve-vibra- 



Sense of Sight. 37 

tions directly, but to cause a chemical change in the retinal 
coating, which excites in turn the sensory nerve to its own 
peculiar form of action. It is quite possible, however, that 
the action in the nerve itself is a chemical action or change. 

The only sensations directly occasioned by the action of 
light on the retina are those of light and color, including the 
so-called colors of white and ^black. It is evident that this 
class of sensations can be occasioned by objects having no 
apparent size. A fixed star has no disc; and a light may be 
seen as red, white, or green, and yet be so distant as to be a 
mere point in the field of view. In such a case there is a sen- 
sation of direction involved, which is entirely separate from 
the sensation of light or color, and which is different for each 
part of the field of vision, because rays of light from each 
part fall on a particular part of the retina. There is also an 
automatic tendency of the eye to revolve, in such a case, un- 
til the sensitive spot is brought into line with the object, and it 
is from this, as we shall see, that our knowledge of direc- 
tion, and hence of form, is chiefly derived. 

Such a sensation does not give any knowledge of the ex- 
ternal world; it might be merely a subjective sensation. We 
know that subjective sensations of light can be occasioned by 
pressure on the eyeball, by a blow on the head, or by a cur- 
rent of electricity, and that these have direction. When you 
shut your eyes and press a finger on the side of one eyeball, 
the resulting sensation of light appears to affect the opposite 
side of the retina, and a constant relation may be traced be- 
tween the directions of the two. 

Now suppose the object to be a colored surface, and we 
have a plurality of indications of direction at the same time. 
If the object fills the whole field of vision, we have all the 
possible points of direction at once, and this gives us a per- 
ception of color without limits; for in such a case a limit of 



38 • The Intellect. 

direction could only be found by turning the head or rotating 
the eyeball, which is not the present supposition. It is a mat- 
ter of dispute whether in such a case there would be any per- 
ception of colored extension external to us. 

We hold that there is no such perception until voluntary motion 
of the receiving organ is added to mere receptive sensation, and 
that this is proved by the experience of persons born with cataract 
of both eyes and afterward cured. Such persons, those of them 
at least whose blindness had been most complete, on looking 
out of a window, for instance, for the first time, could see 
nothing but blotches of color, which seemed to be in contact 
with their eyes. The point, however, is not one of importance, 
for the following reason. Even though we do have a percep- 
tion of something outside of us, it is not knowledge of a defi- 
nite thing, not any true knowledge of the external world as it 
really is, for its real existence is definitely extended in space 
of three dimensions. 

But suppose the field of vision to be divided between two 
colors. There would then be discriminative sensations of 
color, and the points of direction would give us a knowledge 
of whether each was on the right or left, above or below. But 
still the sensations arising would be mere " blotches of color 
in contact with the eye." Indeed, this is exactly the experi- 
ence of the blind-born persons referred to; they did not per- 
ceive the boundary lines between the colors, as extended and 
external, any more than the blotches of color themselves; we 
have seen that sensations of direction may be subjective, as 
well as those of light. 

Take now the case of a colored surface of definite extent; 
the directions of the angles or of many points in the boundary 
line, give us the perception of form or of extended figure. 
But this perception is obtained through the muscular sensation 
of the rotation of the eyeball. By this voluntary motion of 



Sense of Sight, 39 

the organ, making the circuit of the object, especially going 
around it in reverse order, and leaping, or rather measuring, 
across from one point to another, we gain a definite knowledge 
of an extended reality outside of us, real as meeting our vol- 
untary activity, and remaining while we study it. The fact 
also that impressions on the retina are not strictly instantane- 
ous, but have a duration of about one-eighth of a second, is 
of assistance in enabling us to perceive the whole of a line, 
or more than one angle, at a time; since the impression of 
one part remains until the other is reached. (Bain, The 
Senses and the Intellect, 236.) 

Without this muscular feeling of voluntary activity, in the 
rotation of the eyes, or something equivalent, such as move- 
ments of the head and body, we cannot obtain through vision 
any true knowledge of the external world. This point is 
sometimes disputed; but, even if we yield it, and admit that 
the external world would be perceived in motionless vision, 
the fact remains, that it is not the external world in its full 
reality, but only colored surface, which is perceived, or ex- 
istence in space of two dimensions, not of three. The fol- 
lowing considerations, however, are probably sufficient to es- 
tablish our view, that form is not perceived through simple 
sensations of light and color. 

1. What is difference of direction? When the extreme 
points of an object send to the eye rays of light which differ 
in direction by a certain amount, what relation does that ex- 
press ? Merely that the eye would have to be rotated through 
that number of degrees to bring both successively to the same 
spot of the retina. There is a natural tendency to direct the 
sensitive spot of the retina to the first point, and then to the 
one which is to be compared with it, of course by rotating the 
eyeball. This rotation, even when not actually performed, seems 
to be the measure of difference of direction, and so of size, 
and hence of figure. 



40 The Intellect. 

2. Although the outside of the retina is very sensitive to 
light, so that we can see a faint star best by turning the 
head to one side, yet the accurate discrimination of form 
is confined to a small area, and is vastly more perfect in the 
sensitive spot; so that for clear, distinct vision the sensitive 
spot must be turned successively toward all the parts of an 
object, or else the object must be small enough for its image 
to fall entirely within that spot. 

3. In the case of small objects, all the rays of which fall 
upon the sensitive spot at once, we may often by close atten- 
tion, detect a motion of the eye around or across the object, 
where it has been unsuspected before. It is quite probable 
that when we see a small object for the first time, as in learn- 
ing the alphabet, we study it, feel around it with the eye, a 
process which is unnecessary afterwards, when it has become 
thoroughly known. 

" Our notions of form are manifestly obtained by working 
on the large scale, or by the survey of objects of such mag- 
nitude as to demand the sweep of the eye in order to compre- 
hend them. We lay the foundations of our knowledge of vis- 
ible outline in circumstances where the eye must be active and 
must mix its own activity with the retinal feelings. The visual 
idea of a circle is first gained by moving the eye around some 
circular object of considerable size. Having done this we 
transfer the fact of motion to similar circles. So that when 
we look at a little round body we are already pre-oecupied 
with the double nature of visible form, and are not in a posi- 
tion to say how we should regard it if that were our first ex- 
perience of a circle." (Bain, The Senses etc., 373.) Chil- 
dren learning their letters are always taught with large letters. 
In rapid reading it is certain that we do not wait for a complete 
impression or image of each letter. 

4. Nearly all modern authority is on this side of the ques- 



Sense of Sight. 41 

tion. We have already quoted Professor Bain. Many writers 
deny that we perceive the external world at all through the 
senses, but declare that our knowledge of it is entirely a mat- 
ter of inference. (Dr. T. Brown.) Others hold that it is 
only through the sensation of resistance to muscular exertion 
that we gain this knowledge^ (Pres. Mark Hopkins.) But 
we hold that when a visible surface has an outline which we 
follow by muscular movements of the eye, and then follow in 
reverse order, while the object remains the same, it quite as 
really resists our activity, and is quite as really demonstrated 
to be real being thereby, as though we took it in our hands 
and found all its angles and edges with our fingers. Of course, 
however, vision gives us in this way but two dimensions of 
space, not solid matter in its full reality. 

The following observations upon persons cured of con- 
genital cataract of both eyes, are of general interest and not 
without bearing upon this question also, as showing that these 
patients can at first distinguish nothing but color and direc- 
tion. In the celebrated case, among the earliest recorded, of 
a boy twelve years of age, couched by Cheselden, the patient, 
being taken to a window and told to look out, saw nothing 
but great blotches of color, which seemed to be in contact 
with his eyes. This apparent contact with the eyes, common 
in such cases, is probably due to the habit of perceiving by 
touch, that is, bodily contact, necessarily formed by blind per- 
sons. (Taine, On Intelligence, 306.) 

Caspar Hausar, who was kept prisoner in a dark room until 
his seventeenth year, afterwards said that when he was liber- 
ated, on looking out of a window " it seemed to him as if 
there were a shutter quite close to his eyes, covered with con- 
fused colors of all kinds, in which he could recognize or dis- 
tinguish nothing singly." (Taine, op. cit. 308.) 

Wardrop's patient, a lady of forty-five, recognized the direc- 



42 The Intellect. 

tion of a passing carriage, and asked what that large dark ob- 
ject was. Cheselden's patient was unable for some time to 
distinguish the cat from the dog, until one day taking her up 
he felt her all over, saying, " so puss, I shall know you another 
time." Home's second patient, being shown a square card 
could not at first distinguish it from a circle; but after studying 
it for some time, not being allowed to touch it, said he had 
found a corner, and then readily found the other corners. In 
a case witnessed by Dr. Carpenter, the patient, a boy of nine 
years, could recognize the direction of a lighted Candle at 
once. 

It should be noticed that most sufferers from cataract are 
not entirely deprived of sensations of light, but can dis- 
tinguish day from night, or even a window from a blank wall. 
The eye is perfect but the light cannot reach it, except very 
faintly. This limited sensitivity to light strongly resembles 
that of the lowest animals which have any such capacity. We 
have seen that the oyster shuts its shell when a shadow falls 
upon its ocelli. "The Hydra habitually shuns the light, — 
chooses the dark side of the vessel in which it is placed." 
"The rudimentary eye, consisting, as in a Planaria, of some 
pigment grains, may be considered as simply a part of the sur- 
face more irritable by light than the rest. Some idea of the 
impression it is fitted to receive may be formed by turning our 
closed eyes toward the light, and passing the hand backwards 
and forwards before them." (Herbert Spencer, Psychology, 

I, 3 IO > 3 X 4-) 

Why are not objects seen inverted, since the image on the 
retina is inverted ? The inversion of the image is a conse- 
quence of the mechanical structure of the eye. The light 
from the upper part of the object must fall on the lower part 
of the retina, because the center about which the eyeball re- 
volves lies between the pupil and the retina. As the object 



Sense of Sight. 43 

goes up the image goes down The rays of light necessarily 
cross each other in the eye. " It is therefore a prejudice to 
hold that vision by an inverted image is a mystery, while erect 
vision w T ould be natural. Like every geometrical property of 
space, this is entirely lost in the transfer to consciousness." 
(Lotze, Dictate, Psychologie, §36.) 

The perception of direction is an interpretation of signs by 
the mind; direction is a relation, not a concrete thing like 
light, or like a stick w T hich can be touched, and it is a combi- 
nation of directions which gives us perception of form. To 
see the upper part of an object the eye has to be turned up- 
ward, which gives us an impression of height, or of being 
above, although the image of this part of the object goes to 
the lower part of the retina. The mind does not see the im- 
age on the retina, it sees the distant object by means of it, and 
by means of the muscular sensations of moving the eyeball 
from one position to another, which sensations are just as real 
as the image on the retina. The image on the retina is only 
known through the sciences of physiology and' optics, not at 
all by sensation. 

The rays of light coming from various directions excite 
sensations which are interpreted as above or below according 
as we would have to move the eye up or down to direct the 
axis of the eye upon the object, to " bring it to bear " upon the 
object. An absolute standard of direction is afforded us by 
the action of gravity; the direction in which things fall is called 
" down," and the opposite is called " up." 

We have said that there is some dispute as to whether vision 
alone can give the perception of an external world as ex- 
tended in two dimensions. As to the third dimension, in- 
volved in distance and solidity, there is practically no dispute. 
These are acquired perceptions, in which, however, the prin- 
ciple of binocular vision is of great importance, but much is 



44 The Intellect. 

also due to associations of the sense of touch, and accu- 
mulated experience. 

The eye as an optical instrument is capable of being ad- 
justed, to a certain extent, for various distances. For very 
near objects a change in the shape of the lens, which becomes 
more convex to the extent of one forty-eighth of an inch, en- 
ables us to see minute objects more clearly, producing a some- 
what microscopic effect. This change produces a feeling of 
strain and fatigue, and is usually said to be voluntary. For 
objects somewhat further away there is a rotation of the eyes, 
converging their axes, thus increasing the visual angle, and 
giving us clearness and distance at once, enabling us to judge 
of the distance of objects whose size is known, or of the size 
of those whose distance is known. The full explanation of 
these mechanical adjustments belongs to the science of optics. 

The perception of distance is entirely acquired. " The very 
meaning of distance is such as cannot be taken in by mere 
sight. The possibility of a certain amount of locomotion is 
implied in the very idea of' distance. Distance cannot be per- 
ceived by the eye, because the idea of distance by its very 
nature implies feelings and measurements out of the eye and 
located in the other active organs, the locomotive and other mov- 
ing members." (Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, 366.) 

A multitude of observations confirm this theory of the per- 
ception of distance. An infant reaches out its hands, evi- 
dently for objects at some distance, and only slowly learns 
what is and what is not within its reach. In the case of 
couching for cataract witnessed by Dr. Carpenter, already men- 
tioned, the patient, several days after the operation, being told 
to take hold of a watch, groped for it like an infant. War- 
drop's patient, after three months, recognized a grass-plot by 
its greenness, but could not judge of its distance, and put out 
her foot to see if it was close by. Yet this patient was forty- 
five years of age, and had never been quite blind. 



Sense of Sight. 45 

In all such recorded cases the judgment of distance has 
been slowly acquired, and the same process may be observed 
in children. When we look at an object and then reach out 
to it or walk to it, the real distance, as thus experimentally 
learned, becomes associated in the mind with the proper con- 
vergence of the axes of the eyes, with distinctness or vague- 
ness of outline, with brightness or dimness of color, and other 
signs of distance. A vast number of such experiences, con- 
tinued through years, cultivate the judgment of distance and 
make one skillful at estimating it. 

But the errors into which we fall show that the whole is an 
acquired art. A landsman at sea cannot judge of distance 
because he is accustomed to rely on intervening objects. 
The stranger in Colorado judges mountains at a great 
distance to be hills near by, owing to the unaccustomed 
clearness of the atmosphere. The moon appears larger and 
nearer in the horizon than when in the zenith. Etc. 

Some of the Tower animals have a certain amount of in- 
stinctive judgment of distance which appears to be automatic. 
A chicken, for example, will dart at and pick up food when 
hardly out of his shell. But it should be noticed, what is 
generally overlooked, that this action of the chicken is not 
like what we call judgment of distance in a grown-up person. 

The chicken's object is very near, and the only adjustment 
necessary to enable him to strike it is a convergence of 
the axes of the eyes. It is more like threading a needle 
than judsing of a mountain. And this is about all the knowl- 
edge of distance which a chicken ever acquires. Even when 
mature, objects a quarter of a mile away are for him non- 
existent. The intellectual judgment and comparison of dis- * 
tance is a different thing from the automatic convergence of 
the eyes at an object a few inches away, and even though the 
latter existed in human infants it would not prove the existence 
of the former. 1 4 



46 The Intellect. 

So far as distance, as an abstraction, comes under the idea 
of space, it will be discussed hereafter. 

The perception of solidity is similar to that of distance, 
only the assisting sensations are those of touch. The signs of 
solidity, namely, shadow, foreshortening, and perspective, are 
a kind of language, which we -learn and interpret. A sphere 
appears, to vision alone, just like a circle, but after handling 
and seeing spheres we come to join the shading with spherical 
solidity, and imagine that we see the latter directly. 

The perception of solidity is also greatly assisted by what is 
called binocular vision. Since the two eyes are placed some 
three inches apart, each one receives, if the object is not too 
distant, an image of a slightly different portion of the object, 
and thus the combination of the two images gives aid to the 
perception of solidity. The stereoscope is an instrument de- 
vised by Wheatstone to take advantage of this principle. It 
J s held by the best authorities, however, that the mode in 
which it operates is that one eye receives the principal impres- 
sion and the other supplies those additional particular sensa- 
tions which it has received more than or apart from the first. 
(Le Conte, Sight.) It is well known that nearly every person 
has one eye very much stronger than the other, and habitually 
uses that one, by itself, far more than he is aware of. 

The theory that the perception of solidity is entirely intel- 
lectual is confirmed, as in the case of distance, by numerous 
observations and experiments. Cheselden's patient, " for some 
time after distinct vision had been attained, saw everything 
flat, as in a picture." (Carpenter, Mental Physiology, 188.) 
Wardrop's patient could distinguish an orange on the mantle- 
piece, but could form no notion of what it was. " It has long 
been known," says Carpenter, (op. cit. 195.) "that when a seal 
is looked at through a microscope, it will appear sometimes 
projecting like a cameo, sometimes excavated as an intaglio/' 



Sense of Sight. 47 

a phenomenon which does not occur with the binocular micro- 
scope. 

Wheatstone has devised an instrument called the pseudo- 
scope, which effects a " conversion of relief," making, for ex- 
ample, the outside of a basin look like the inside. " But 
this ' conversion of relief,' is generally resisted, for a time at 
least, by the preconception of the actual form which is based 
on actual experience; and it only takes place immediately, in 
cases in which the converted form is as familiar to the mind as 
the actual form." Thus, looking at the inside of a mask with 
a pseudoscope, it at once appears to be the outside of a mask, 
especially if colored like the outside; but looking at the out- 
side of a mask a lengthened gaze is required to make it look 
like the inside. " In the case of the living human face, how- 
ever, it seems that no protraction of the pseudoscopic gaze is 
sufficient to bring about a ' conversion of relief,' " the associa- 
tions of so familiar an object being too strong to be overcome by 
optical expedients. (Carpenter, op. cit. 191.) 

"The whole technical power of painting," says Ruskin, 
" depends on our recovery of what may be called the inno- 
cence of the eye; that is to say, of a sort of childish percep- 
tion of these flat stains of color merely as such, without con- 
sciousness of what they signify, as a blind man would see them 
if suddenly gifted with sight." (Elements of Drawing, Quoted 
in Porter, 155.) 

This theory of the indirect perception of distance and 
solidity is a striking instance of progress in psychology. It 
was demonstrated by Berkeley in 1709 from theoretical con- 
siderations. The defective state of the sciences at that time, 
especially ignorance concerning the muscular sensations, made 
his argument less satisfactory and checked its reception. (Bain, 
Mental Science, 189.) In some points, too, his form of the 
theory has been abandoned; for example, he held that we have 



48 The Intellect. 

no knowledge of extension through the eye; that the eye 
gives color only; that there is no necessary connection be- 
tween visible and tangible extension. None of these points 
are now held to be a part of the true theory. 

This theory, although so contrary to all our natural unre- 
flecting beliefs concerning vision, has made its way, in spite of 
all difficulties, because, like the undulatory theory of light, it 
explains every new case which arises and is confirmed by all 
new discoveries in the sciences of optics, physiology, and 
psychology, until it is now accepted by almost every person 
whose opinion is of any value. Some able men have recently 
opposed it, as Bailey and Abbot, but they have opposed the 
theory as Berkeley held it, not as improved by more recent 
writers in the light of modern science. 

A question arises in connection with binocular vision, — 
why do we not see double, since we use two eyes, which may, 
to a certain extent, act separately ? The following considera- 
tions will probably remove the difficulty. 

i. Form and distance being given by muscular sensations of the 
eyes, the same set of those sensations in either eye produces the 
same image, that is, locates the object in the same apparent place, 
and the two images correspond or are superimposed. If the ad- 
justment of these muscles be altered, by pressing a little on the side 
of one eye wi'th the finger, or by a voluntary effort, we do see 
double. (Drbal, Empirische Psychologie, 138. Le Conte, 
Sight.) 

2. We do not, as above said, have two entirely distinct 
images which are confounded or mixed or superimposed, 
but one principal image, supplemented in some particulars by 
another. If the two images were superimposed they would 
not correspond exactly, since they are not taken from the 
same point of view. The effect of binocular vision depends 
on this very feet, that the images are not exactly alike; that is, 



Sense of Touch. 49 

our vision of solid objects is not absolutely single, but is, to a 
certain extent, and in a certain sense, double, but is interpreted 
by the mind as single. (Bain, Mental Science, 192.) 

3. The perception of distance and solidity is, as has been 
said, an intellectual phenomenon, an interpretation of signs. 
Hence the mind incorporates with the sensations involved, all 
the knowledge which it has previously gained in any way, and 
each perception of this kind is really the result of a long 
course of training. Hence, even if we do see double at first, 
the eyes and the mind may be adjusted to see single. This is 
proved by cases in which persons have been rendered cross- 
eyed by injury to the head. In such cases, if the divergence is 
not too great, the eyes are brought into harmony again by one 
or two years' practice, new associations of the muscular sensa- 
tions of sight being established in that time. 

" It is no more necessary that the two eyes should give two 
separate and complete pictures to the mind, than that the two 
hands embracing the same ball should suggest two balls; or 
that the thumb and finger grasping a pen should suggest two 
pens." (Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, 302.) 

SENSE OF TOUCH. 

In one meaning of the term Sense of Touch, this sense is 
attached to the whole surface of the body, even to the special 
organs of sense. It has in fact been called "the general 
sense," and some writers have even attempted to show that 
the other senses are all developments and refinements of the 
sense of touch. (Herbert Spencer, Psychology, I, 400.) In 
the tips of the fingers and tongue the sense of touch has a 
remarkable development, and the nerves of touch are there so 
specially sensitive as to constitute them, it might almost be 
said, a special organ of sense. 

In other words the entire skin, is capable of receiving im- 



50 The Intellect. 

pressions of pressure, pain, and temperature, but the tips of 
the fingers and tongue are usually employed in voluntary seek- 
ing for information of the external world. 

Some sensations which are probably occasioned through the 
same nerves with those of touch are not of importance for 
this part of psychology, and are better classed under organic 
sensations; they are sensations of heat and cold, pain and 
pleasure, tickling, etc. 

Experiments have been made by Weber to determine the 
comparative discriminative pow T er of touch in different parts 
of the body. The blunted points of a pair of compasses are 
placed at different distances apart on different parts of the 
body; when they are too close together they are perceived as 
one, not as two. The smallest distance at which they can be 
distinguished as two varies from one thirty-sixth of an inch at 
the tip of the tongue, to about one tenth at the tips of the 
fingers, about one fifth on the lips, and three inches on the 
back. It is probable that in order to produce a double sen- 
sation the points must be in areas supplied by different and 
distinct nerve-branches, and separated by at least one such 
area. Thus each such area would correspond to a separate 
organ of sense, supplied by a special nerve, branching to every 
part of the area; for there is no part of the skin where a pin- 
point can be set down without causing pain. 

Under the perception of points should be classed percep- 
tions of roughness or smoothness. The face of a brush, for 
example, gives a plurality of points, and we can judge to some 
extent whether they are scattered or close. 

Light pressure is usually classed under touch, but when 
pressure is heavier the muscular feeling of resistance becomes 
involved, and the two cannot be distinguished. By support- 
ing the hand, as on a table, muscular sensation can be elimi- 
nated as far as possible, and it is then found that the tips of 



Sense of Touch. 51 

the fingers can distinguish between twenty ounces and nine- 
teen and a half ounces. 

By moving the hand along the surface or edge of an object, 
we get a perception of continuance of the sensation, com- 
bined with the muscular feeling of motion. This kind of per- 
ception is greatly assisted by the fact that we have two hands 
and several fingers, giving an effect somewhat like that of two 
eyes in binocular vision. 

In this way we gain a knowledge of solidity, of the external 
world as having three dimensions, assisting the sense of sight 
and furnishing associations which go to form the acquired per- 
ceptions of sight. The similarity of compound touch to bi- 
nocular vision is curiously illustrated by an experiment resem- 
bling that in which the eyes are made to see double by a 
slight pressure on one of them. If a boy's marble be pressed 
by the forefinger and at the same time by the second finger, 
so crossed over as to bring the inside edges of both fingers 
against the marble, it will seem to be two separate marbles. 

When our own body is the object of touch, the double 
sensations, active and passive, especially when combined with 
vision, give perceptions of the parts of the body as in a pe- 
culiarly close relation with the perceiving subject. In this 
way, and not by direct consciousness, we get a knowledge of 
the body as extended and having solidity, and come even to 
regard it as a part of the external world, distinct from the sub- 
ject or ego. 

The sense of touch is capable of very wonderful cultiva- 
tion, especially where exclusive attention is directed to it, as in' 
the case of blind persons. " There is nothing essential to 
the highest intellectual processes of science and thought, that 
may not be attained in the absence of sight." (Bain.) 



52 The Intellect. 

muscular sensation. 

The muscles^ are all supplied with nerves of sensation as 
well as motion, and these convey a variety of sensations, some 
of which are organic, as fatigue, strain, pain, pleasure of mo- 
tion, passive feeling of support, cramp, etc., and are not of 
psychological importance. 

The intellectual or discriminative sensations of muscle are 
of two kinds, that of resistance and that of motion or changed 
place. Those of the first kind are always combined with 
sensations of touch, since pressure cannot be brought to bear 
upon the muscles without first affecting the skin. In the case 
of resistance, as in supporting a weight in the unsupported 
hand, it is said that an ordinary person can distinguish be- 
tween thirty-nine and forty ounces. (Bain.) But the muscles 
soon become tired and then lose their discriminative sensi- 
tiveness, which is absorbed in the sensation of strain and pain- 
ful fatigue. 

The sensation of resistance, as when we grasp anything 
firmly in the hand, gives vividness to our knowledge of exter- 
nal reality in connection with touch. Indeed, it is held by 
some that here alone do we get a knowledge of the external 
world as extended and really existing. (Hopkins, Outline 
Study of Man.) 

We have already stated our own view, that we know real be- 
ing external to us whenever we exercise toward it a voluntary 
activity of the apparatus of perception, which we cannot do 
in taste, smell, hearing, or simple vision, but can do in com- 
pound vision, and still more perfectly in touch. Muscular 
sensations of motion and resistance imply, we hold, more than 
being and space, namely causation, a subject which will arise 
for discussion later on. Even Bain says, " the sense of re- 
sistance is primarily the feeling of expended energy." (The 



Muscular Sensation. 53 

Senses and the Intellect, 178.) "There is no feeling of our 
nature of more importance to us than that of resistance. 
Everything we touch, at the same time resists, and everything 
we hear, see, taste, or smell, suggests something that resists. 
It is through the medium of resistance that every act by which 
we subject to our use the objects and laws of nature is per- 
formed." (James Mill.) 

In moving a limb, as in the sweep of the arm through space, 
we have a series of sensations corresponding to the motion, 
but we need the help of sight, in general, to make the muscu- 
lar combinations accurate. Extend the arms, then shut the 
eyes, and try to bring the two forefingers together; they will 
not, usually, meet exactly. Yet habitual actions can be per. 
formed with surprising accuracy even in the dark; fix your eye 
on the door knob in a familiar room, then let some one ex- 
tinguish the light, and try to walk to the door and touch the 
knob. Very often the knob is touched with perfect correct- 
ness. In throwing a missile the co-ordination of motions, 
guided by sight, but trained by previous experience, is wonder- 
fully accurate. 

A curious combination of tactual and muscular sensations 
occurs when we take a stick in the hand and "feel for" some- 
thing with it, especially if sensations of sight be somehow 
eliminated. Besides the sensation of resistance directly given 
by the stick in the hand, we have the muscular sensations of 
movement, and also the resistance which the stick meets with 
at its other end and which is transmitted to the hand; we thus 
seem to feel the object directly. 

Similarly in using tools, we seem to feel the tool, often, as a 
continuation of our muscular and sensitive system. The 
carpenter can tell by the feeling whether his plane is cutting 
well or ill, though the real variations of muscular sensation 
must be almost infinitesimal. Lotze has elaborated this subject, 



54 



The Intellect. 



attributing to this peculiar " projection of sensations " all skill 
in the use of instruments and hence all industrial progress. 
(Microkosmus II, 195. Drbal.) 

A similar class of sensations is not uncommon. Thus, if 
a fly walks on the ends of our hair, when it is short, we seem 
to feel him at that place, not in the skin, where the nerves 
affected really are. Or, if something strikes one of our teeth, 
we seem to feel the blow in the enamel or bone, which has no 
nerves, not in the gum, where the nerves really are. A cat's 
whiskers seem to be capable of similar discrimination. The 
antennae of insects probably act in the same way. But this 
so-called "projection of sensation " seems to be an acquired 
perception, similar to the localization of sensation, which we 
shall soon refer to. It is probable that all precise localization 
is acquired, and if so, it cannot be much more difficult to lo- 
calize a sensation in the hair, or the teeth, or the nails, or a 
stick held in the hand, than in the foot or the hand. 

Muscular sensations have a tendency to become joined to- 
gether automatically in rythmical series, and the series goes on 
without any jntervenation of the will, when once begun. One 
learning to play the piano strikes each key by a separate voli- 
tion, with full attention; but a skillful player, playing a familiar 
piece can do it without attention, and even talk about some- 
thing else all the while. So in learning to walk, the child has 
to give full attention to each step, and then often fails to get 
just the right muscular adjustment. Later in life the mpve- 
ments of walking may even go on automatically when the man, 
overcome with fatigue, has fallen asleep. 



Localization. 55 

TOPICS CONNECTED WITH SENSATION AND 
PERCEPTION. 

I. Localization. 

Many of our sensations are instantly referred by us to the 
part of the body in which the originating impulse was received. 
This is called localization of sensations. It does not always 
occur. When the attention is directed to the interpretation 
of the sensation, the localizing reference is absent. When we 
look at an object, we do not think of the eye, we are not con- 
scious of the eye at all. But if the light becomes so strong 
as to cause pain, the attention is drawn to the organ, and we 
perceive the eye as affected by the light. So in hearing, we 
do not think of the ear unless the sound is so loud or so harsh 
as to be very disagreeable, in which case we at once perceive 
the ear as affected. Sensations of touch, pressure, tempera- 
ture, and resistance, seem always to be accompanied by the 
localizing sensation. 

Dr. Carpenter says it is doubtful whether the localization is 
" primary or secondary; a congenital intuition or an acquired 
instinct." (Mental Physiology, 149.) The weight of author- 
ity is in favor of calling it an entirely acquired perception. 
On this theory the child has to learn to know its own body 
and limbs, and to recognize the places of its various sensa- 
tions, and does this by the combined sensations of touch and 
sight, and especially that peculiar double sensation described 
above, in which the organism is both active and passive at 
the same time. In this way, it is said, we learn to know the 
body as in one sense belonging to the external world, and yet in 
most intimate connection with the soul. The following con- 
siderations are relied upon to establish this view. 

1. Even adult persons often find the localizing power defi- 



56 The Intellect. 

cient. One cannot always tell which of his teeth is aching, 
until, by applying the tongue, he " finds out " which one it is; 
that is, acquires the localizing perception. 

2. Frequent mistakes are made in localizing sensations. 
We refer sensations to insensible parts, the hair, the teeth, even 
a stick, as described above. After the amputation of a limb 
the patient continues to have sensations of pain, ■ tickling, 
pricking, etc., which he refers to the part which has been am- 
putated. In many cases these disappear after a few years, 
when new associations have been established. Organic feel- 
ings are often misleading as to the real seat of disease or in- 
jury. Disease of the heart causes pains in the arms. Acid in 
the stomach causes a pain over the eyes. The first warning 
of hip-disease is sometimes a pain in the knee. 

3. Observations on infants are held to confirm this view. 
It is a long time before they can indicate the seat of a pain. 
In the pain of colic they draw up the feet in a peculiar manner, 
it is true, but this may be a spasm caused by the great inten- 
sity of the pain, not a sign of its location. 

On the other side the following considerations may be men- 
tioned. 

1. Many of those who hold localization to be entirely ac- 
quired are idealists, and hold that all sensations are subjective, 
and that the mind projects its own sensations into space, which 
is also its own creation. They are thus obliged to account 
for the localization of sensations in the same way. This 
meets to a great extent the argument from authority. 

2. After amputation of a limb the patient has sensations 
apparently in the severed limb, in many cases through the rest 
of his life, though prolonged for many years. This is held 
to indicate an inherent, specific, capability in the nerve, as in 
the sensory nerve, to occasion only one sensation, no matter 
what the stimulus may be. Such a capability would give dim 



Localization. 57 

and vague experiences at the beginning of life, when all the 
powers are undeveloped and uncertain, but would develop with 
the gradual perfection of the organism. 

3. Localization certainly becomes automatic, and probably 
is so from the first, so far as it exists. According to Dr. Car- 
penter, also, it is a reflex activity. 

4. The muscular sense seems to be in a certain way a local- 
izing sense in itself, and is possibly the basis on which com- 
plete localization is built up. It seems impossible to believe 
that the muscular sensations by which, for example, we know 
the movement and position of the arm, give us no knowledge 
in themselves, but only through association. 

The true state of the case seems to us well expressed by Presi- 
dent Porter. " All sensations are attended with a more or less 
distinct and definite relation of place in the sensorium. This re- 
lation of place is at first very indefinitely apprehended; indeed, it 
may not be attended to at all; but there must be furnished, in 
the original experiences of the soul, the means of discerning 
such a relation, provided the attention is directed to the sen- 
sation. 5 ' (Human Intellect, 130.) We conclude, then, that 
localization is a power which can be largely improved and de- 
veloped by experience and association, but becomes or is au- 
tomatic, and is founded in original endowment, the structure 
of the nervous system. 

Some writers describe a kind of extension of localization, 
under the name of projection of sensations, affirming that 
when we look at an object we are only referring our subjective 
sensations to a certain point in space, and thus we construct 
the external world out of our inner consciousness. (Drbal, 
empirische Psychologie, 155.) This is true only in hallucina- 
tions and dreams. M. Taine, indeed, plainly asserts that all 
our knowledge is hallucination. But the difference between 
our ordinary life and a dream is plain to right-thinking men, 



53 The Intellect. 

and is only lost sight of by those who have already adopted 
the presupposition of idealism. The only phenomena which 
can properly be called projection of sensations have been 
described above under the sense of touch. 

II. Illusions and Hallucinations. 

Illusions are errors in the perception of real objects. The 
senses themselves, in their normal action, do not mistake, but 
the errors of illusion arise from a wrong interpretation by the 
mind, when some unaccustomed circumstance, altering the 
significance of the usual signs, has been overlooked. When a 
man seems ten feet high in a fog, it is because the dimness of 
outline due to the fog is associated in our minds with distance, 
and we judge him to be farther away than he really is. 

When we direct our eyes upon a spot in the window, objects 
beyond seem double, but when we direct our attention to* dis- 
tant objects, the spot on the window seems double; effects 
easily explained by the principle of binocular vision. When a 
voice, re-echoed from a building or a cliff, seems to proceed 
from thence, though the speaker is in the opposite direction, 
it is plain that the sound-waves, as they really reach us, are 
rightly judged to proceed from the direction of the echo. 
When we see the two rails of a railway track apparently com- 
ing together in the distance, it is because the real object of 
vision is the distance between the rails, and this object neces- 
sarily subtends a smaller angle as the distance increases. When 
a stick, obliquely inserted in the water, appears bent, it is be- 
cause the mind assumes the refraction of light to be unchanged 
in the new conditions. When the full moon looks larger 
near the horizon than in the zenith, it is because the number 
of intervening objects makes us judge it more remote than 
when no objects are between, and hence larger. When a stump 
seen in the twilight, seems to be a robber with a gun, it is be- 



Feeling in Sensation. 59 

cause the excited imagination is prepared" to construct such an 
object, and the slight resemblances reported by vision are 
misinterpreted. 

Hallucinations are subjective sensations, caused by abnormal 
action of the brain or mind. A blow on the head makes one 
see stars. Pressure on the eyeball causes a flash of light to 
appear. Electric currents stimulate several of the senses so as 
to cause false perceptions. Dreams will be spoken of under 
the head of Imagination. Visions, ghosts, and phantasms are 
not very uncommon. The case of Brutus is celebrated. 
Martin Luther is said to have seen the devil frequently. Pascal, 
having nearly fallen into the river, with nerves weakened by 
asceticism, saw a fiery gulf beside him, and could not get rid 
of it. Benvenuto Cellini, in a dark prison, thought himself 
visited by the holy virgin Mary. 

Perhaps the most remarkable case is that of Nicolai, a book- 
seller of Berlin, who was visited by many of these dream-peo- 
ple. The so-called dreams of opium, haschish, and other 
drugs, seem to the victim as real as actual events. The delu- 
sions of insane persons are fundamentally of the same charac- 
ter, and by constant repetition and brooding upon them be- 
come "fixed ideas," which dominate the patient's mental life, 
and impel to all sorts of extraordinary actions. It is well 
known that nervous children sometimes take images in the 
mind for perceptions. (Dr. Clark, Visions.) 

III. Feeling in Sensation. 

A curious question has been raised how far sensation is ac- 
companied by feeling. This question is somewhat complicated 
by the various meanings in which the words feeling, and to 
feel, are used in English, viz: — 

1. Feeling is used of the sense of touch; we feel of a thing, 
and say it feels soft, smooth, hard; or we feel it to be soft, 
rough, sticky, etc. 



60 The Intellect. 

2. Feeling is use'd for the emotions, including pleasure, pain, 
disgust, interest, gratitude, and all the sentiments, or finer feel- 
ings. 

3. For all the sensations and emotions together. " All sen- 
sations are feelings, but all feelings are not sensations. Sensa- 
tions are those feelings which arise immediately and solely 
from a state of the bodily organism." (Fleming, Vocabulary 
of Philosophy.) 

4. Professor Bain uses feeling to include most of those sen- 
sations which w r e have called organic and muscular, and also 
the emotions proper. Thus he says, " Feeling includes all our 
pleasures and pains, and certain modes of excitement, or of 
consciousness simply, that are neutral or indifferent as regards 
pleasure and pain. The pleasures of warmth, food, music; 
the pains of fatigue, poverty, remorse; the excitement of hurry 
and surprise; the supporting of a light weight, the touch of a 
table, the sound of a dog barking in the distance, are feelings. 
The two leading divisions of the feelings are commonly given 
as sensations and emotions." (Mental Science, 2.) 

Evidently he does not here intend to include the discrimina- 
tive feelings of the special senses. But the distinction is not 
an easy one to carry out. It obliges him to treat of feelings 
twice, in two connections, first among the sensations, and then 
after the intellect, as emotions. And he is not thoroughly con- 
sistent in applying the term. Thus, he speaks of muscular 
feelings, organic feelings, feelings of respiration, of heat and 
cold, hunger, nausea, and disgust, and yet calls many of them 
sensations. 

5. To feel is used in the meaning of to believe. We say, 
" I feel it to be true," " I cannot help believing it, because I 
feel it is so." This is a popular, colloquial use. 

Some authorities teach that every sensation is accompanied 
by feelings of pleasure or pain, or rather an agreeable or dis- 



Feeling in Sensation. 6i 

agreeable feeling. (German lust and un lust.) According to 
Lotze, sensation and feeling, though different in nature are 
always conjoined, yet not derived from one another. The 
relation between simultaneous impressions or states acts as an 
impulse upon the soul, and arouses a new activity, the soul re" 
sponding in the shape of feeling. (Dictate, Psychologie §46.) 
Drbal, following Herbart, says that all feelings, including emo- 
tions, arise from the conflict and hindrance, or co-incidence 
and mutual strengthening (forderung) of ideas, but that weak or 
momentary relations of ideas do not produce feeling, and are 
not further noticed by us. (empirische Psychologie, 200.) 

President Porter introduces the element of feeling into his 
very definition of sensation, which he calls "the subjective ex- 
perience which the soul, as animating an extended sensorium, 
has of its own states as pleasurable or painful." (The Human 
Intellect, 128.) He does not account for this combination, 
nor explain the origin of feeling in connection with sensation, 
nor do we understand that he makes any use of it. Writers of 
the sensational or of the Herbartian school can -make great 
use of the principle, because they derive all the emotions from 
these simple feelings. 

Lotze divides feelings into sensuous, esthetic, and moral. 
The first are such as the feelings of harmony or discord of 
sounds and colors, agreeable and disagreeable sensations of 
smell, taste, touch, the last rising at one extreme into pain; these 
are personal, as depending on each one's physical organism. 
The second are the pleasures and pains (rather displeasures) of 
taste, aroused by beauty and ugliness, etc., in which the per- 
sonal element is wanting, and which are universal in their 
application, since all men may derive pleasure from the same 
picture or statue. The third is moral approbation or disap- 
probation. Professor Bain, as we have seen, gives a similar 
extent to the term feeling. 5 



62 The Intellect, 

But President Porter compares the pain of a cut or blow 
with the pain of the death of a friend, and says, " the one is ex- 
perienced by the soul as connected with an organism, while 
the other is felt in the soul without reference to the sensorium 
at all. ' We should prefer to say that the pain of a cut belongs 
to the body alone, as an organic sensation, while the pain 
caused by the death of a friend belongs to the mind, and can- 
not be derived from, related to, or classified with the other in 
any way. But, however stated, this correct doctrine removes 
the need of any mention of pleasure and pain as universal 
elements of sensation. It may be true that if we could ab- 
stract our attention sufficiently from the mental content of our 
sensations, we should find that they are all, or were originally, 
accompanied with feeling. The child learning to read may do 
so with pleasure or with pain and disgust. But the skillful 
reader has none of either feeling in consciousness; his atten- 
tion is entirely absorbed by the meaning of what he reads, and 
the higher feelings which it arouses in him. When we hear a 
piece of news or read it, in the newspaper, the articulate sounds 
of the voice or the black characters on a white ground, are 
neither agreeable nor disagreeable in the sensations which they 
directly occasion, but only in the intellectual content of their 
meaning. 

Sir W. Hamilton elaborated a theory that feeling and knowl- 
edge are in inverse ratio in every act of perception, or, as he 
phrased it, the more intense the sensation proper or subjective 
consciousness, the more indistinct the perception proper or 
objective consciousness. But he himself was obliged to re- 
strict this by saying " above a certain limit," for it is obvious, 
as we have seen, that some sensations have no content df feel- 
ing, and some never appear in consciousness at all, but excite 
automatic actions, if any, and hence have no mental content. 
It is disputed, however, whether these last are properly calW 
sensations. 



Feeling in Sensation. 63 

One of Hamilton's illustrations is that of a dog, to which, 
though his " sense of smell is' so acute, all odors seem in 
themselves indifferent." It might be difficult to prove that 
odors are indifferent to a dog, though it is quite possible that 
he abstracts his attention from the feeling and gives it entirely 
to discrimination, as we ourselves often do. Another illustra- 
tion is the human skin in the sensation of touch. The tips of 
the fingers are more discriminative, but less sensitive to pain 
than the arm or the back. But the explanation seems to be 
that the skin is thicker at the tips of the fingers; a pin or 
a sliver there, if it really reaches the nerves, causes sharper 
pain than elsewhere; and the heel, where the skin is thickest 
of all, has almost no discriminative sensibility. Yet there is a 
good deal of truth in Hamilton's comparison, which we think, 
however, can all be covered by the following statements better 
than by laying down a universal dogma. 

1. The sensations may be arranged in a series, from those 
which have no mental content but are wholly feeling, to those 
which have no content of feeling but are all mental. A tooth- 
ache is all pain; a glance at the sun is nearly all pain; a sweet 
taste is part pleasure and part discrimination; a pleasant 
musical air has more complicated and difficult discrimination; 
in reading a book the mental process is complicated and diffi- 
cult, gathering up the arbitrary symbols and interpreting them 
into sounds, combining these into words and interpreting out 
of them the author's meaning, with all the subsidiary trains of 
thought and association going on at the same time; sensuous 
feeling is usually entirely absent, unless, indeed, feeling be ex- 
pressly defined so as to include all sensation. 

2. The attention may be directed to either element, when they 
are combined, to the exclusion of the other. In comparing 
two samples of cloth to see if they are of exactly the same 
color we have sensation about as pure as it can be found, yet 



64 The Intellect. 

discrimination is intense; we know nothing of the colors as 
agreeable or the contrary, for the moment, but only know them 
as alike or different. 

Mr. Herbert Spencer, criticising this doctrine of Hamilton's 
says, " It would seem not so much that sensation and percep- 
tion vary inversely, as that they exclude each other with de- 
grees of stringency which vary inversely." (Psychology II, 

248.) 

IV. Attention. 

Attention is a necessary condition of perception, and con- 
sists in the narrowing or concentration of the activity of the 
mind upon one or a few sensations to the exclusion of others. 
It may be either voluntary or spontaneous. When a number 
of different sensations are occasioned by different objects at 
the same time, they may only cause confusion, and no one of 
them may originate a perception. If one of them or one set of 
them is much stronger than the others, so as to overbear them, 
it will force the recognition and attention of the mind, and 
occasion a perception. Or if one of them calls up a more 
exciting image than the others, owing to previous associations 
or familiar knowledge, the voluntary attention of the mind is 
instantly directed to this one. Thus, if I am intently reading 
a book, the clock may strike in the same room, but the well- 
accustomed sound cannot force its way among the set of sen- 
sations which I am receiving from the printed page. But the 
sound of a distant fire-bell, or the gnawing of a rat close by, is 
a more exciting set of sensations, and I stop reading and give 
my attention to the new sound. 

The will often determines a change in the flow of the nerve- 
currents, and a particular organ with its set of nerves is 
rendered more active; this is called innervation. We often 
suspend, the action of one organ to render another more acute, 
shut the eyes or hold them fixed, in order to catch a faint 



Attention. 65 

sound. We do not hear what a friend is saying to us while 
we are watching an exciting scene in a play, or scrutinizing 
a distant object with a glass; when we are through we ask him 
to repeat, innervate the ear, that is, give him our attention, 
and hear him then distinctly. 

If any sensation is extremely intense this attracts the atten- 
tion, and the mind knows nothing through the sensation. If 
you look at the sun you cannot see anything, but the intensity 
of sensation is painful and injurious. With a bit of smoked 
glass to render sensation less intense you can see an eclipse at 
its very beginning. An intense pain overpowers all the facul- 
ties; while your 'tooth is being pulled you can neither per- 
ceive nor reason. But, on the other hand, soldiers in bat- 
tle often receive severe flesh wounds without knowing it, so in- 
tense is their excitement. That attention is necessary to per- 
ception is also shown by every-day occurrences, such as when 
one goes around looking for a thing which is in his hand, or 
for glasses which are on his forehead. 

In spontaneous attention it is only the direction of the atten- 
tion which is automatic, the continuance of it is voluntary. 

" In attention we submit to an impression, we keep the 
mind steady in order to receive the stamp." (Coleridge.) 
"Attention is concentrated observation." (Calderwood.) 
" The greater or less energy in the operation of knowing is 
called attention, which is another term for tension or effort." 
(Porter.) "The content of our mind at each moment can be 
only very limited, and we can entertain simultaneously only a 
very small number of ideas." (Drbal.) 

No power of the mind is more susceptible of cultivation 
than attention. Young children cannot fix their minds on 
one thing more than a few minutes. To teach scholars how 
to study, to train the power of attention, is perhaps the most 
difficult office of the teacher. 



66 The Intellect. 

It is a curious question how many objects can be attended 
to by the mind at the same time. Dugald Stewart pro- 
pounded a theory that the number is only one, and that in 
comparing two objects the mind goes with almost infinite ra- 
pidity from one to the other. This theory is disproved by the 
commonest experience. The most important part of all our 
knowledge is the knowledge of relations, which presupposes at 
least two objects in the mind at once. 

Yet it is probable that the most complete, intense attention 
can be given to only one set of sensations at the same time. 
The truth seems to be that the mind can distribute its activity 
among several objects to some extent, but cannot perceive them 
all with the same vividness. Mr. Herbert Spencer says; 
" Consciousness cannot be in two equally distinct states at the 
same time." (Psychology, II, 250.) But he also says; — "I 
find that there may sometimes be detected as many as five 
simultaneous series of nervous changes, which in various de 
grees rise into consciousness so far that we cannot call any of 
them absolutely unconscious. When walking there is the loco- 
motive series; there may be a tactual series; and there is the 
visual series; all of which are subordinate to the dominant 
consciousness formed by some train of reflection." (lb. I, 

398.) 

A still more curious subject connected with attention is the 
influence of excited attention and expectation in producing 
illusions and hallucinations, and even bodily disorders. Sir 
Walter Scott, soon after the death of Lord Byron, having been 
engaged in reading an account of the departed poet, on going 
into another room, saw an exact representation of Lord Byron 
before him. Sensible that it was an illusion he examined the 
object, and found it to be a screen covered with coats, shawls, 
etc. (Carpenter, Mental Physiology, 207.) 

During the burning of the Crystal Palace in London, many 



■ Qualities of Matter. 67 

spectators saw the chimpanzee, which was known to have 
escaped from his cage, writhing around one of the iron ribs 
of the building in the midst of the flames. But the object 
turned out to be a tattered piece of blind, tossed about in the 
wind. (Id. ib. 208 ) Hypochondriacs come to have the very 
disease they fancy. The victims of witchcraft pine away and 
die, because they believe they are bewitched, and so brood 
over their fate with inteilse attention. Many wonderful cures 
have been wrought by the king's touch, by holy water, by 
mesmeric passes, all due to expectant attention. 

Baron Reichenbach discovered a new force which he called 
odyle, and performed many wonderful experiments to prove it, 
all with excitable and nervous persons. But Mr. Braid per- 
formed t^e same experiments without any odyle, through ex- 
pectant attention alone. His patients, being taken into a dark 
room and told that there was a magnet in a certain corner, 
used to see the magnetic force issuing from it in the form of 
flames of fire, although there was really no magnet there. Mr. 
Home, the "medium" was proved to have floated out of one 
window and in at another by the testimony of two witnesses; 
but another witness who was present saw nothing of the kind. 
(See the works of Carpenter, Maudsley, Abercrombie, Tuke, 
Brodie, Sully.) The ventriloquist and the conjuror deceive us 
by directing our attention where they wish, quite as much as by 
their dexterity. • 

V. Qualities of Matter. 

The question naturally arises in connection with perception, 
how it is that matter can affect our sense-organs. The power 
of occasioning sensation in any particular way has usually been 
called a quality, and the description and classification of the 
qualities of matter has been a topic of some importance. It 
is obvious that in order to occasion sensation the qualities of 
matter must exist, or its powers must be exerted, in certain re- 



68 The Intellect. 

lations and under certain conditions. Qualities are called by 
such names as color, weight, hardness, size, smell, etc. But 
in order to have color a body must be in the light; and in 
order that it should have color for us, we must have eyes, 
must look at the body, and must give our attention to what we 
look at. In order to have smell a body must be volatile, to 
have taste it must be soluble, and that it may have these quali- 
ties for us, it must come into proper relation with our nerves of 
sensation. 

It is commonly said, and is an obvious thought, that the 
qualities of matter' are entirely in our minds, not in the objects 
which we perceive; that there is no color, no sound, unless an 
eye or an ear be present to see and to hear. There is a sense 
in which this is true. Sweetness does not exist in sugar as 
sweetness, but as a peculiar combination of atoms of oxygen, 
hydrogen, and carbon, probably held in combination by their 
coincident or rythmical vibrations, and ready to change their 
combination under certain influences, in such a way as to af- 
fect the organ of taste. So color does not exist in the object 
as color, but as a power of checking some of the light-vibra- 
tions, and reflecting others unchanged, probably because some 
of the vibrations of light are in accord or in rhythm with its 
own atomic vibrations and some are not. 

There is then really some power in the object of impressing 
or influencing objects around it by its activities, and hence of 
affecting our sense-organs, which are a set of instruments, vary- 
ing in delicacy and nature from a pair of scales for measuring 
gravity, to a photographic plate for recording the vibrations of 
light. The popular mode of speech is justifiable and proper. 
The roar of the ocean and the colors of the flowers are real 
things, motions or actions of matter, not indeed sensations; 
but then they could never be sensations, in any proper use of 
language, but only occasions of sensation; and no one ever 



Qualities of Matter. 69 

said that they were sensations. The terms, color, sound, hard- 
ness, etc., are used, however, to denote both our sensations and 
the qualities or activities of bodies which occasion those sen- 
sations. Some writers confound these meanings, and we need 
to bear the distinction carefully in mind. 

The most common division of the qualities of matter has 
been into two classes, primary and secondary. This distinction 
may be said to date back to the earliest period of philosophy. 
Democritus distinguished between those qualities which are 
known by touch and all others, and denied that the latter give 
any real knowledge of matter. 

Aristotle used the terms common sensibles or percepts, and 
proper sensibles or percepts, the former being magnitude 
(extension), figure, motion or rest, and number. According 
to Sir W. Hamilton " he anticipated Descartes, Locke, and 
other modern philosophers, in establishing, and making out by 
appropriate terms, a distinction precisely analogous with that 
taken by them of the primary and secondary qualities of mat- 
ter." (Philosophy, ed. by Wight, 313.) 

Descartes re-introduced this division into philosophy in the 
modern period. According to him our knowledge of the pri- 
mary qualities is clear, that is, intuitive, self-evident; but of 
the secondary qualities we have only an "obscure and con- 
fused conception of something which occasions the appropriate 
sensation." (Porter, Human Intellect, 637.) 

But as he taught that the essence of matter is extension, as 
the essence of mind is thought, the knowledge of extension 
and the qualities depending on it, was, for him, a real knowl- 
edge of matter as it is. And we shall find this doctrine of ex- 
tension, as the essential attribute of matter, pervading subse- 
quent classifications. 

Locke's division, though some advance upon that of Des- 
cartes, is yet essentially the same, and accounted for in the 



jo The Intellect. 

same way; that is, the primary qualities are those which we 
perceive directly, intuitively, as they really are, while the 
secondary are merely affections of the mind caused by bodies. 
He says: "A power to produce any idea in our mind, I call 
quality of the subject wherein that power is; " and divides 
qualities into, "first, such as are utterly inseparable from the 
body in what estate soever it be," such as solidity, extension, 
figure, motion or rest, and number, and secondly, " such quali- 
ties which in truth are nothing in the objects themselves but 
powers to produce various sensations in us by their primary 
qualities, that is, by the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of 
their insensible parts, as colors, sounds, tastes, etc." (Essay 
on Human Understanding, Book 2, Ch. 8.) 

However interesting or even useful this division may be, the 
reason given for it is unsatisfactory. We can no more con- 
ceive matter without secondary qualities than without primary. 
We can indeed imagine the sky to be green and the grass blue, 
but we must conceive every object to have some color (count- 
ing white and black as colors), if it is exposed to light at all ? 
capable of emitting sound, if struck in the air; having some 
chemical reactions, similar to those occasioning smell and taste, 
having some degree of hardness or softness, heat or cold, elas- 
ticity or rigidity, etc. 

Moreover, it is just as easy to conceive matter to be without 
figure and solidity as without color; the ether, if it transmits 
lightj must be matter, yet it does not retard the motions of 
the planets; a gas diffused in another gas can hardly be said 
to have form. Again, number is not a quality of matter, but 
a logical necessity of the perception of different objects; we 
must know them as one or many, if we know them at all. 
And motion or rest is no quality of matter, though all matter, 
so far as we know, is in constant motion. 

The advance of physical science since Locke's time leaves 



Qualities of Matter. 71 

little room for doubt that the primary qualities of matter de- 
pend as much on the " bulk, figure, and motion, of their in- 
sensible parts," or molecules, as do the secondary. When we 
feel a body as heavy, pressing down on the hand, the sensa- 
tion results from an activity of the body, pulling itself toward 
the center of the earth. The atoms of matter are supposed 
to be in constant vibration, and the regularity and continuity 
of these vibrations define its form and solidity. In fact, it is 
now a common theory that the very essence of matter is the 
activity of its " insensible parts," which are in themselves only 
centers of force, having a merely supersensual existence. 

The most complete and elaborate classification of the qual- 
ities of matter is that of Sir W. Hamilton. His division is 
three-fold, primary, secundo-primary, and secondary. The 
primary qualities are deduced " from the simple datum of sub- 
stance occupying space," and fall into two divisions, the prop- 
erty of filling space, or geometrical solidity, and the property 
of being contained in space, or physical solidity. 

Geometrical solidity which is defined as " the necessity of 
trinal extension, in length, breadth, and thickness," is devel- 
oped into three qualities, divisibility, magnitude, and figure. 
Physical solidity, defined as ultimate or absolute incompres- 
sibility, is really equivalent to being or existence; he calls it 
impenetrability. The attribute of being contained in space is 
explicated into two, mobility or motion and rest, and situa- 
tion or position. The author well says that these " primary 
are less properly denominated qualities, and deserve the name 
only as we conceive them to distinguish body from not body, 
corporeal from incorporeal substance." They are indeed 
deductions from the conception of matter as reality whose 
essence is extension, and not properly qualities at all. 

The secundo-primary qualities "are all contained under the 
category of resistance or pressure." Resistance or pressure 



72 The Intellect. 

may have three sources, co-attraction, repulsion, and inertia. 
The first involves gravity and cohesion; gravity gives the quali- 
ties heavy and light, cohesion gives hard and soft, solid and 
fluid, tough and brittle, etc. Repulsion is developed into com- 
pressible and incompressible, elastic and inelastic. Inertia 
gives movable and immovable. The secondary qualities are 
such as color, sound, flavor, the feelings of heat, sneezing, 
shuddering, setting-the-teeth-on-edge, etc. 

"The primary determine the possibility of matter abso- 
lutely; the secundo-pnmary, the possibility of the material 
universe as actually constituted; the secondary the possibility 
of our relation as sentient existences to that universe." "The 
primary may be roundly characterized as mathematical; the 
secundo-primary, as mechanical; the secondary, as physiologi- 
cal." (Metaphysics, Bowen's ed., 340.) 

Our remarks upon Locke's division are also applicable to 
Hamilton's second and third classes. Considered as qualities 
of bodies, these are activities, powers of affecting other bodies; 
and since we can transform these motions into sensation, and 
interpret these sensations in perception and thought, the activ- 
ity of objects toward us seems to differ from their activity to- 
ward other things, but it is not really different. All the quali- 
ties of matter, except those metaphysical qualities which are 
not properly so called, are similarly related to perception. 
Even impenetrability is declared by Lotze to be, not a prop- 
erty but an activity of matter, somewhat, we suppose, as the 
pressure of gases is due to molecular vibration. " Bodies do 
not react on one another because they are impenetrable, but 
they are impenetrable because they react on one another." 
(Dictate Naturphilosophie, §19.) 

Mr. Herbert Spencer's classification differs from- Hamilton's 
only in terminology. He calls the three classes "body as 
presenting statical, statico-dynamical, and dynamical attri- 



Substance and Attribute. 73 

butes." This nomenclature is not more felicitous than Hamil- 
ton's; for all qualities of bodies which appear in perception 
must be dynamical, must exert force or influence of some 
kind; and all must be statical, must have continuous, inde- 
pendent existence. 

SUBSTANCE AND ATTRIBUTE. 

When we speak of qualities the question necessarily arises, 
Qualities of what? The term quality, or attribute, implies 
substance. The two are -really inseparable, like the correla- 
tive terms, husband and wife, triangle and three sides. Are 
qualities, then, one thing and objects another? Are qual- 
ities something which the object may have or not have, and 
which may exist by themselves, apart from objects ? Mr. 
Mill replies that qualities only exist, there is no substance, or 
substratum, matter is only a permanent possibility of certain 
sensations. Berkeley is generally, though erroneously, under- 
stood to have held the same view. Hume distinctly denied 
the existence of the real thing to which the qualities belong. 
Kant maintained that there is such a real existence, or noume- 
non, but that it is unknowable. In this he is followed by 
Herbert Spencer and many others. Other philosophers have 
in general held to the reality of substance. 

Undoubtedly the constitution of our minds is such that 
when we perceive an object we perceive it as really existing; 
our minds act in this relation under the category of being, 
and we can never practically accept the belief that the object 
is nothing but a set of sensations. No argument can make 
this any clearer. But there is not in nature or in conscious- 
ness anything corresponding to the separation of the object into 
substance and attribute, real thing and quality. This separa- 
tion is purely logical, and has an effect somewhat like divid- 
ing the mind awkwardly into different faculties. 



74 The Intellect. 

Substance apart from quality is only an abstraction, for there 
is no real being without attributes. Being without attributes 
is equivalent to non-being. To say that the noumenon is un- 
knowable apart from phenomena is mere platitude, for of 
course we can only know what is in relation to us, and know 
it by those relations. We know the object as related to us by 
its qualities or activities, and there is no object without quali- 
ties or activities. " Sensible qualities," says Lotze, " show us 
how things act, not what they are." (Dictate, Metaphysik, 
§16.) Not what they are, that is, apart from their action; but 
they are just as they act. 

"The 'underlying substance' of the schools, the 'thing in it- 
self of Kant, are mere names, which signify either being in the 
abstract or being in the concrete. If it is being in the abstract, 
then it must be synonymous with matter as knowable, that is, 
it is only a concept, which can be separate from its relations in 
thought but never in fact. If it is being in the concrete, then 
this must be known with its relations and never apart from 
them. In either -case the substance or thing in itself cannot 
be known by itself." (Porter, Human Intellect, 632. See 
.also Bowne's Metaphysics, 48.) 

CONSCIOUSNESS. 

This important subject may be said to be transitional, be- 
tween topics connected with perception, and the necessary 
elements of perception. 

Every perception, feeling, or act of will, is accompanied by 
a knowledge of self as the perceiving, feeling, or willing agent. 
This is called consciousness, a very appropriate designation, 
since by its etymology it means a with-knowing. It can be 
separated from other acts of the mind only logically, not prac- 
tically. It is an inseparable element of every act of perception, 
omitted hitherto in our discussions, in order to avoid complica- 



Consciousness. 75 

tion, and because its importance demands separate and fuller 
treatment. "We know and we know that we know; these 
propositions," says Hamilton, " logically distinct, are really 
identical." 

The facts of memory make this clear. When we remember 
anything, a former perception, or feeling, or action, the ele- 
ment of self is perfectly clear. All philosophers are agreed 
that there is here an irresistible belief in the identity and con- 
tinuity of the past perception and the present memory, how- 
ever they may explain it or try to explain it away. 

Professor Ferrier has most ingeniously based a whole system 
of metaphysics on the postulate, or ultimate datum, which he 
considers self-evident, that consciousness of self accompanies 
all knowledge. "All cognition is a knowledge of self plus an 
object." 

It would be well if the term could be confined to this mean- 
ing, self-knowledge, as implied in all mental action. But gen- 
eral usage gives it a wider meaning, and we cannot hope to 
make this useful restriction. It is commonly used in the sense, 
of "introspection, or introspective attention," (Bain); "the 
power by which the soul knows its own acts or states," (Porter); 
" the immediate knowledge which the mind has of its sensa- 
tions and thoughts, and, in general, of all its present operations." 
(Morell.) 

Hence consciousness is often spoken of as a faculty of the 
mind. Such phrases are almost inevitable, and yet they are 
misleading; for consciousness is parallel with all the faculties, a 
condition of them all, not properly to be considered a faculty, 
co-ordinate with, for example, perception, or imagination. If 
the power of knowing that we know is a faculty, parallel with 
preception, imagination, etc., then we are required to suppose 
another and higher faculty to embrace both in one unity of 
feeling; but this faculty would be consciousness in the usual 
sense, hence the first is a useless supposition. 



76 The Intellect. 

Less positively incorrect, but still objectionable and to be 
avoided, are all figurative ways of speaking of consciouness, as 
a witness (Cousin), a light (Hickok), a dry light (Coleridge), a 
revealer, etc. 

Consciousness is often said to be the source of all our knowl- 
edge of the operations of the mind, and psychology has even 
been called " an inquiry into the facts of consciousness. All 
that we can truly learn of mind must be learned by attending 
to ihe various ways in which it becomes conscious." (Fleming.) 

Cultured consciousness, or introspection, is indeed an im- 
portant source of knowledge in psychology, but not the only 
one; much may be learned by observation and comparison, 
and these are important checks upon the errors and deceptions 
of introspection. John Locke deserves credit for calling at- 
tention to this source of knowledge, under the name of reflec- 
tion. He taught, however, that what we know in consciousness 
is the operations of the mind, not the mind itself. Among 
his followers, says President Porter, "it has passed into a posi 
tive dogma that the soul in consciousness cognizes the opera- 
tion only, and nothing besides." 

The correct formula is, we know the ego as modified in its 
changing states, whether of perception or feeling or action, 
limited by whatever relations. We place the ego first because 
it is " unchanged and permanent," while the " states are vary, 
ing and transitory," to quote the words of President Porter, 
who continues, correctly and clearly: "It is of the very nature 
and essence of a psychical state to be the act or experience of 
an individual ego. We are not first conscious of the state or 
operation, and then forced to look around for a something to 
which it is to be referred, or to which it may belong; but what 
we know, and as we know it, is the state of an individual per- 
son. . . . The fact of memory proves it beyond dispute.'' 
(Human Intellect, 95.) 



Consciousness. 77 

On the other hand, some have denied the possibility of this 
philosophical consciousness. Comte dogmatically asserted 
that consciousness is one state, perception-, or feeling another, 
and two such cannot exist together; an absurdity which every 
one's experience disproves. Herbert Spencer says "no one 
is conscious of what he is, but of what he was the moment 
before." It is a sufficient reply to this, that all other philoso- 
phers are agreed to call this kind of knowledge, characterized 
by the element of past time, by the name of memory, not con- 
sciousness; and that it rests on the same assumption with 
Com te's, that the mind cannot do two things at once, which 
is entirely gratuitous. 

We do not intend to affirm that consciousness is always 
equally clear and forcible in every act of the mind, nor that it 
is intuitive in the sense of being incapable of culture. The 
infant has blurred and inaccurate perceptions and confused 
feelings, and of course its consciousness is equally blurred, 
yet real and easily demonstrated. It cannot tell you that it 
knows the ego from the non-ego, neither can it tell you that 
it has a pain in its stomach. Yet it knows that the pain is in 
its own stomach, not in yours; knows that its mother is not 
the same being as itself; knows, in some dim way, itself as a 
separate being or entity. Before even this dim state of knowl- 
edge arises, we may say that the child has not consciousness 
in the full sense of the term. "As long as the sensations are 
confused together, and are not discriminated, . . . the 
soul remains in this elementary condition of comparative un- 
consciousness. This is the condition of the infant [at birth]. 
It is also the condition into which the developed man relapses 
in swooning, distraction, intoxication, or approaching sleep." 
(Porter, Human Intellect, 100.) 

But as soon as discrimination begins, and the actions are 

no longer quite automatic, consciousness is real, though its 
6 



78 The Intellect. 

content may be slight and dim. The philosopher, accustomed 
to introspection and familiar with abstract terms, can argue 
better about himself, and describe his feelings better than the 
ignorant laborer; but he is not any more certain of his own 
identity, more sure that it is he himself, and not another, 
who experiences all his sensations. 

Even the brute, though he cannot express any distinction 
between the ego and the non-ego, has consciousness more or 
less developed. The dog knows whether you whip him or 
another dog, knows whether it is he or another dog that has a 
bone. In the lower orders of the animal creation it is not 
easy to say how far down consciousness can be traced, but we 
may say confidently that it cannot exist where the actions are 
demonstrably automatic, as in the oyster, etc., noticed under 
the head of sensation. 

" It is probable," says President Bascom, " that sensibility to 
physical pain and pleasure, and the appetites, were the first mental 
facts to appear in consciousness. . . . This also is the 
order of development in human life. The infant enters on a 
conscious activity first through the sensibilities, the appetites, 
and is trained for months in this school. . . . But the ap- 
petites must almost immediately be supported in conscious- 
ness by the special senses. .' . . . There seems to be 
good ground to believe that consciousness arises slowly with 
the increase of that unity in the nervous system which puts it 
under the control of a single center, gathers the senses about 
that center, and knits the organic life as closely as does con- 
sciousness our intellectual activity; . . . that conscious- 
ness becomes the specialized function of the cerebrum, 
from a previously weak, vague, and confused form. 
. . . . The clearest proof of consciousness in doubtful 
territory is memory. This faculty is the basis of experience, 
and not till it has been obtained can the facts of conscious- 



Consciousness. 79 

ness, if any are present, be organized into knowledge. The 
action of memory is also more readily discriminated from au- 
tomatic action than is the conscious from the unconscious use 
of the senses." (Comparative Psychology, 180-188.) 

Recent observations by Sir J. Lubbock, Kirby and Spence, 
etc., go to show that the intellect of the insects, ants, bees, 
wasps, etc., has been greatly overestimated, that memory is al- 
most lacking to them, and hence consciousness must be dim 
and vague, and those actions which seem so wonderful, almost 
entirely automatic. 

Philosophical consciousness, or careful introspection, is as 
capable of culture and improvement by education as any other 
power of the mind. "Men differ more widely in respect to 
the energy and effect with which they use this power than in 
respect to any other." (Porter, Hum. Int., 87.) By direct- 
ing the attention to the various elements of perception, the ob- 
ject, the sensational process, the element of self, we learn to 
observe ourselves, the action of our senses and minds. 

The uncultured consciousness does not distinguish between 
mind and body. To the child or the savage his self is his 
body, with all the powers he has, mental and physical; and 
when he has the feeling, "it is I who perceive this object," 
he has no notion of an immaterial self, distinct from the body. 
Socrates is represented by Plato as going through a long ex- 
planation, and asking many questions, before he can make the 
distinction between the two kinds of ego clear even to his 
grown-up pupils. After many comparisons, such as that of a 
shoemaker's knife, and a shoemaker's hand, as equally instru- 
ments, he at length extorts an apparently unwilling concession 
of the point. 

Under religious and moral instruction especially, the feeling 
may be very early aroused; but it is essentially an .acquired 
one, a product of the cultured consciousness. We are con- 



8o The Intellect. 

scious of self as the subject of thought, feeling, and action. 
If we have not learned that thought is not a function of the 
body, or that the soul is a distinct entity from the body, then 
consciousness cannot present to us such an ego. 

Some strange opinions concerning the ego have been held 
by philosophers, in their anxiety to carry out preconceived 
theories. Mr. J. S. Mill held that the mind is a series of sen- 
sations and feelings. But he was compelled to admit that it 
must be conceived as a series of sensations which is aware of itself! 
Such a mind would be like a string of beads without any 
string. Again, on reaching the subject of memory, Mill saw 
the impossibility of explaining it without a person or entity of 
some sort to be the continuous subject of a continuous action,, 
and frankly declared that memory was the final inexplicability 
which he could not manage on his system. The nature of 
self will be more conveniently discussed when we come to 
speak of the soul. 

AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 

Consciousness is necessarily the court of final appeal in all 
matters that come within its range. " The facts of conscious- 
ness are the most certain of all facts. The objects which con- 
sciousness presents are, if possible, more real and better at- 
tested than the objects of sense. . . . We may doubt 
whether this or that object be a reality or a phantasm, but we 
cannot doubt that we doubt." (Porter, Hum. Int., 115.) 

The difficulties which arise about this matter turn on false 
assumptions as to what consciousness can do, or false reports 
of what it really does, or else are mere verbal disputes. If an 
insane man tells us that he is conscious of being made of glass, 
he is mistaken; but he would be equally mistaken if he said 
that he .was conscious of being made of flesh and blood and 
bones. No such subject comes within the range of conscious- 



Unconscious Perception. 8i 

ness. If a man tells us that he is conscious that two straight 
lines cannot enclose a space, we reply, it is impossible, and it 
would be dangerous to admit such language, for it opens the 
door to endless dogmatism. The mind has no organ for truth, 
though it has command of certain tests by which truth may be 
tried. When the mind is conscious of being in a certain state, 
of receiving certain sensations, or* experiencing certain feel- 
ings, there can be no reasonable doubt about the truth of it. 
But some abnormal condition of the body or mind may have orig- 
inated the state or impression. The insane man is conscious that 
his limbs feel hard and smooth, like glass, to him. He is right, 
but his perceptions originate in his own mind, dominated by 
a " fixed idea." The mathematician has an immediate per- 
ception that two straight lines cannot enclose a space; but 
what he is conscious of is the perception, not the fact. 

One of the most celebrated dicta in the history of philoso- 
phy is Descartes', " Cogito, ergo sum" It was intended as a 
refutation of absolute skepticism. Whatever I doubt, I can- 
not doubt that there is something which doubts and thinks; 
to do so is to destroy the doubt itself and render all reasoning 
impossible. When Descartes was asked to explain his dictum 
he substituted for ergo, scilicet, dest-a-dire, showing that this is 
the correct interpretation of his words. "In consciousness I 
am confronted, not with a thought, but with a being. What- 
ever else may be unreal, whether idea, phantasm, or specula- 
tion, this acting and suffering self is a reality, not a mere phe- 
nomenal as contrasted with a transcendental ego, nor an ego 
inferred or suggested, but an ego directly known to be." (Por- 
ter, Human Intellect, 99.) 

UNCONSCIOUS PERCEPTION. 

An interesting question arising in connection with the sub- 
ject of consciousness, is the extent to which mental action may 
be unconscious. The phenomena called by Dr. Carpenter 



82 The Intellect. 

"unconscious cerebration," and by Sir W. Hamilton "latent 
modifications of consciousness," will be discussed under the 
head of Association. We have already seen under the head of 
Sensation that some writers use the term "sensation" of im- 
pressions which are entirely automatic, and do not appear in 
consciousness, but the more general and better usage is against 
this. 

In some cases, however, the point may be a doubtful one. 
When a student, absorbed in his book, does not notice the 
clock striking in the same room, he afterwards, in some cases, 
recalls having heard it. In such a case he may have had the 
sensations, occasioned by the sound, at the time, but, attention 
being intently directed elsewhere, no perception was formed, 
and the sensations were automatically recorded. More proba- 
bly, however, the supposed remembering of the sound is an im- 
agination, a phantasm, suggested by the fact being learned that 
the clock really has struck. Some remarks made under the 
head of Attention are applicable to this point. 

Sir W. Hamilton applies the term, Unconscious Mental 
Action, to the elements of compound sensations. For ex- 
ample, the roar of the ocean at a distance is made up of the 
noise of many waves, each one of which, by itself, is inaudible. 
Hamilton contends "that they produce a certain modification, 
beyond consciousness, on the percipient subject." But no 
proof can be given of such a view. It is far more probable 
that each impulse by itself is too weak, in compound sensa- 
tions, to affect the sense-organ. 

Psychology " is unable to advance any proof of unconscious 
elements or processes in the human mind. Such proof is, in- 
deed, in the very nature of the case, unattainable." (Sully, 
Pessimism, 192.) 



Uses of the Term Consciousness. 83 

uses of the term consciousness. 

A subjective division of consciousness has been adopted by 
President Porter, into two kinds, natural or spontaneous, and 
reflective or philosophical. But these are really different stages 
in the cultivation of introspection, and are not distinct enough 
to deserve separate mention as different kinds of consciousness. 

An objective division may be mentioned, into, first, the feel- 
ing of self as a necessary element in perception, and second, 
the knowledge of the mind and its states, of the mind as modi- 
fied. 

Sir W. Hamilton used the term consciousness sometimes in 
the usual sense, a knowledge of the mind and its states, some- 
times in a wider sense, as "a comprehensive term for the com- 
plement of our cognitive energies." He says that "conscious- 
ness and immediate knowledge are terms universally converti- 
ble." He extends the term consciousness to knowledge of the 
external world, and says " I am conscious of the inkstand." 
Worst of all, he does not strictly adhere, in all cases, to the 
same meaning of the term throughout the same argument. 
The extended use of consciousness as equivalent to knowledge, 
he probably derived from the German word "bewusstsein," 
which denotes, as President Porter remarks, rather a be-know- 
ing, than a with-knowing, and is commonly used to mean know- 
ing in general. It is not too much to say that Hamilton lent 
his great influence to confuse the nomenclature of philosophy in 
English on this important topic, by thus teaching the duality of 
consciousness. 

Mr. Herbert Spencer also uses consciousness as equivalent 
to knowledge. He also speaks of being conscious of space, 
of time, and of motion, and even says in one place, "we are 
scarcely at all conscious of the space behind us." He also 
calls dreaming "sleep-consciousness." This use of the term 
has some advantages with reference to space and time, but it 



84 The Intellect. 

is better to call these necessary elements in perception than to 
say we are conscious of them. 

Dr. Cocker carries this confusion still farther by making two 
cross-divisions, each threefold. He divides consciousness sub- 
jectively considered, somewhat as President Porter does, into 
spontaneous, representational, and reflective; objectively into 
knowledge of self, of the world, and of God. 

The terms Christian consciousness, and God-consciousness, 
have been borrowed from the German by some writers. In 
place of the latter term, "intuition of God" is in better 
English usage, and even better expresses- the real meaning of 
the German; "necessary idea of God" is also frequently used 
in this meaning. 



NECESSARY ELEMENTS OF PERCEPTION. 

I. Space. 

We have seen-, when discussing the senses separately, that 
through sensations of sight, under certain conditions, we -know 
external objects as extended in two directions, as having sur- 
face-extension; and that through sensations of touch and mus- 
cular motion, under certain conditions, we know objects as ex- 
tended in three directions, as having solidity. This obviously 
introduces a new subject, that of Space, which we could not 
delay at that point to examine, and whose importance demands 
separate treatment. 

The question what space is in itself, belongs to metaphysics, 
and we shall only discuss it so far as it is incidental to our 
present purpose. 

As to the cognition of space, two great theories divide 
philosophers. On the one hand it has been held by the ma- 
jority that our knowledge of space is previous to all experi- 



Space. 85 

ence of things in space, so that we bring to our perceptions of the 
external world this a priori concept, or intuitive idea of space. 
On the other hand, John Locke attempted to show and his 
followers still hold, that all our knowledge of space is derived 
entirely from sensations. The first school, holding that our 
ideas of space, time, cause, etc., are necessary elements of 
cognition, not derived from experience, are called intuitional- 
ists, a priori philosophers, or various other names of similar 
significance. Those who derive all these from experience are 
called sensationalists, experientialists, experience philosophers, 
etc. 

John Locke's polemic against intuitive ideas had great force 
against the crude way of viewing the subject at that time in 
vogue, and has resulted in a change of the entire situation. 
It is no longer held by the intuitionalists that the mind is 
equipped with ready-made knowledge previous to experience, 
nor that this knowledge springs up in completeness on the oc- 
casion of the first experience; but these principles are gener- 
ally considered, with more or less clearness and consistency, 
to be conditions of thought, formulas or categories under 
which the mind acts, necessary or primary elements of cogni- 
tion. To this point we shall return. 

It is often overlooked, however, by the intuitionalist philos- 
ophers, that our objective knowledge of space as a quality or 
relation of actually existing bodies, is a product of experience. 
On this point Sir W. Hamilton has suggested a useful distinc- 
tion. He says that space is known a priori, extension a 
posteriori; that is, the term extension should be applied to 
space as filled by bodies, or measured by the distances be- 
tween bodies, while the term space should be reserved to mean 
an eternal condition of the existence of the material universe, 
the abstract something which makes these concretely-known 
relations possible. It would be well if the terms could be 



86 The Intellect. 

used in this way, but the attempt so to restrict them would be 
hopeless, especially as so many recent writers purposely con- 
found the two, and attempt to reduce all space to exten- 
sion. 

When we begin our mental life we first learn the space- 
relations of the objects close about us; then the parts and 
furniture of the room and house; then the trees, houses, etc., 
objects which we see from day to day; next cities, mountains, 
seas, the globe on which we live. The moon, too, is compara- 
tively easily reached by this space-construction, its distance 
being easily comparable with those which we have already 
learned. Thence we ascend to the planets and the stars, 
where, for any real understanding, we must use a new standard 
of measurement, no longer miles but diameters of the earth 
or of its orbit. Thus we " place ourselves " in the universe, 
and learn our space relations (extension-relations.) 

But on the other hand the experience-philosophers overlook 
the most important point, that not a single object can be per- 
ceived as extended," not a single distance can be compared or 
estimated or imagined, not a single step taken in this process 
of so-called generalization, which does not involve space as an 
element in cognition. If I see a tall and a short man to- 
gether, I cannot tell in what the difference between them con- 
sists, unless I have at the time of comparing them, in and 
with the act of comparison, and as a kind of category which I 
apply in that act, a knowledge, in my mind, if not in words, 
of bigness or size. So, if the points of a pair of compasses 
are placed upon my skin, not too near together, so that the 
two sensations are exactly alike except in place, I could not 
know that this is the particular in which they differ, if I had 
not, in and with my double sensation, some cognition of what 
difference in place depends upon, that is, space. So, also, if I 
look upon a colored object and feel around it with my eyes, 



Space. 87 

following its outline by rotation of the eyes, I perceive the 
points and parts of the object as extended, that is, under 
space-relations, implying, as before, some cognition of space. 

It is not meant by this that in the process of perception 
space is perceived as a third thing, different from self and the 
object, yet known by the senses. We do not see, hear, smell, 
or feel space; it is not sensible, but intelligible, knowable by a 
direct, inexplicable act of the intellect. When an object is 
perceived at all it is known under this relation, a space-rela- 
tion. 

Nor is it meant that the mind clearly distinguishes, and says 
to itself, " I know this object as in space, and I know space;'' 
this is the end of mature reflection, not the beginning of per- 
ception. 

The reason why our perceptions of material objects are. 
thus conditioned is that the objects themselves exist under 
space-relations, and cannot exist in any other way. It is im- 
possible for us, while in this semi-material state of being, 
to conceive any other kind of existence, that is, not under 
space relations. We cannot imagine to ourselves a pure spirit, 
that is, one without parts or distances, existing outside of all 
space-relations. Nor can we imagine space as infinite, but 
when we remove its boundary in thought, another forms itself 
beyond. 

Space may thus be said to be a necessary form of all our 
perceptions, and may even be said to be a form latent in the 
mind, by which it knows the external world; for the mind 
does not, at first, consciously and explicitly recognize space 
as a separate entity, but nevertheless cannot think the material 
world without it; much as one cannot speak without grammar, 
even though he' does not know what the word grammar means. 
The knowledge of space may thus be said to be a priori, in 
the Kantian sense, that is, prior to experience, because it is 



&8 The Intellect. 

implied in the very first experience of the actual world; it is a 
condition of experience, logically antecedent, though practi- 
cally simultaneous; the mind has an aptitude, a capacity for 
knowing objects in this way, a necessary, innate power of per- 
ceiving things under this form, and in no other way, because 
things actually exist under this form and in no other way. 

It has been held by many philosophers that space has no 
real existence by itself, but is a mere relation among objects, 
or a product of the mind. Leibnitz taught that space u is 
only the order of things coexisting, as time is the order of things 
successive." Mr. H. Spencer" if we understand him correctly, 
adopts the same view. He says: — " The idea of space in- 
volves the idea of coexistence, and the idea of coexistence in- 
volves the idea of space." (Psychology. II, 201.) But space 
cannot be the mere sum or abstract of the relations of things, 
or the mere order of things, for it is that which makes all these 
possible; " the principle, without form, order, or relation in 
itself, which makes possible an infinite number of forms, or- 
ders, and relations of things." (Lotze, Dictate Metaphysik, 

§51-) 

Kant taught that space is ideal, a mere subjective form im- 
posed by the mind on things. In this view; — "The idea of 
space has no objective validity, it is real only relatively to 
phenomena, to things in so far as they appear out of us; it 
is purely ideal in so far as things are taken in themselves, and 
considered independently of the forms of the sensibility." 
(Fleming, Vocabulary of Philosophy.) 

Herbart taught that space is an idea, necessarily arising in 
every mind from the conflict of other ideas. (Lotze.) But 
all ideal deductions of space, says Lotze, " smuggle in the 
specific quality of space (spatialness, raumlichkeit) among the 
abstract concepts out of which they deduce it, though it is the 
very thing to be deduced." (Dictate, Metaphysik, ^55.) 



Space. 89 

Since Kant's time some form of the ideal theory of space 
has been held by nearly every German philosopher. But this 
theory of what space is in itself is not a necessary result of 
Kant's theory of the cognition of space. He was, rather, 
forced into this position by his arbitrary assumption " that 
there is no correspondence between things as they really are 
and things as they appear to us. . . We can admit the 

positive portion of Kant's theory, then, namely the a priori 
cognition of space and time, without accepting the skeptical 
doctrine which he has needlessly and unreasonably appended 
to it, — the doctrine, that is, that space and time in themselves 
are unreal, and illusions." (Bo wen, Modern Philosophy, 279.) 

The reality of space and time rests on the same basis as all 
the ultimate principles of knowledge, — namely, necessity. We 
cannot think of matter without space, or events without time, 
any more than we can think of a plurality of objects without 
number. 

Sir W. Hamilton says that Kant has demonstrated the a 
priori nature of space, to the conviction of every one capable 
of understanding the subject. We accept this with the limita- 
tions suggested above. We prefer the formula that space, 
subjectively considered, is a necessary element in perception, 
and objectively considered is a necessary condition of the ex- 
istence of matter. 

Lotze has endeavored to escape the difficulties of the ideal 
theory by holding space to be a product of the inner states of 
things or elements. These elements act upon one another 
and upon us by virtue of their inner states; which actions 
cause them to be related to one another as though in space- 
relations, and to appear to us in the same way. " According 
to the common view space is } and things are in it; according 
to ours, things are, and there is nothing between them, but 
space is in them." (Dictate, Metaphysik, §55.) This is evi- 



90 The Intellect. 

dently only a refinement of Leibnitz's doctrine that space is 
a relation of matter. It also ascribes occult, if not super- 
natural, powers to the atoms of matter. 

A real definition of space is impossible. All the so-called 
definitions are either synonyms or but partial descriptions. If 
we say that space is a condition of all material existence as 
extended, this is mere tautology, for " extended " implies space. 
If we leave out the word " extended," we have no definition 
of space, but a fact, perhaps the most important one, about 
space. Space, like force, life, motion, is a word which is in- 
capable of further explication. 

Many striking remarks have been made about space, which 
really do nothing toward defining it. Dr. Clarke held that 
space is an attribute of the Deity. Sir Isaac Newton was 
charged with saying that space is the sensorium of God. 
Lotze said that a blind man's space, (not merely his knowledge 
of space), is different from the space of those who can see. 

A curious speculation has been indulged in some quarters, 
that space may have more than three dimensions, and " tri- 
dimensional space " has become a not-uncommon phrase. 
This theory evidently depends upon the doctrine that space is 
ideal. If space is a real thing, or even a real relation between 
real things, all directions and distances can be reduced to three 
co-ordinates. Lotze, though himself holding to a modified 
ideal theory of space, answers this notion of m-dimensioned 
space conclusively. " The relations of things which such 
minds," (namely those minds to which space has more than 
three dimensions,) " would perceive, would be entirely different 
from those which we observe. Such an intuitive form would 
have no similarity to our space, and it is only by an illogical 
play with conceptions that it can be called any kind of a modi- 
fication of our space-intuition." (Dictate, Naturphil. §31.) 

The exposition of the abstract relations of space consti- 



Space. 9 1 

tutes the science of geometry. The discussion of the postu- 
lates of geometry belongs to metaphysics. 

The above doctrine concerning space receives strong confirma- 
tion from the phenomena of dreams. In dreams the percep- 
tions through which we generally cognize space being absent, 
space-relations are wanting to our thoughts. We spend an 
hour climbing a familiar stair-way, and then suddenly find our- 
selves transported to a distant city, with no sense of incon- 
gruity. We leap over a wall, but cannot step over a gutter. 
The somnambulist can walk over roofs and cliffs, because, his 
sight being dormant he has no perceptions of the depths 
around him, and so his equilibrium is not disturbed by fear, 
and he is guided by the sense of touch. Blind persons often 
exhibit the same strange security. 

Our view of space, both objectively and subjectively, is also 
confirmed by what is known of the lower animals. They evi- 
dently have empirical knowledge of space; that is, they perceive 
objects under space-relations, and adjust their actions to those 
relations. Yet they have no intuition of its abstract relations, 
and no power of constructing a geometry. The hare and the 
dog both know which is gaining on the other, whether the 
distance between them is increasing or diminishing, and the 
perceived fact automatically produces eager impulses and in- 
tense exertions. But neither knows that a straight line is the 
shortest distance between two points, or that velocity must be 
measured in terms of space and time; nor has either any ca- 
pacity of acquiring such truths. The lowest intelligences, 
however, which are capable of perceiving objects at all, have 
plainly the power of perceiving them under space-relations. 

"There is no more mystery," says President Bascom, "in 
the animal's fitting his action to spaces without distinctly con- 
sidering them than there is in man's doing the same thing. 
The apparently voluntary movements of the animal are as au- 



92 The Intellect. 

tomatically co-ordinated to spaces as are its stages of digestion 
to the length of the intestinal canal." (Comparative Psychol- 
ogy, 231.) -The adjustment of our own actions to space-rela- 
tions is also to a great extent automatic, either originally or by 
long practice. When we throw a stone or strike with an axe, 
space-relations are necessary conditions of the action, and 
some latent cognition of space is implied in the perceptions 
concerned. But abstract reasoning about space, or the dis 
covery of its abstract properties, or the description of the cog- 
nition or intuition of space, are things which only the philoso- 
pher has within his reach. They are unintelligible to the unin- 
structed man, the brute has no capacity even of acquiring 
them. 

"These truths, instead of being the first which are con- 
sciously possessed and assented to, are the last which are 
reached, and by only a few of the race are ever reached at all. 
. . . The mind must be exercised to some extent in philo- 
sophical studies before it can comprehend their import and 
application." (Porter, Human Intellect, 502.) 

II. Time. 

Time and Space are usually spoken of together, and are in- 
deed inseparable in experience. We can only measure each 
by the other. ' Yet time, as an element in perception, does not 
resemble space either in itself or in the method of our knowl- 
edge of it. Time has been called the form of our inner expe- 
rience, as space is the form of our outer experience. But it 
is involved in all our experiences, and especially in memory. 
Perception, as we have seen, takes place by means of discrimi- 
nation, and discrimination implies a succession of impressions 
and succession involves time. 

The schools of philosophy differ concerning time precisely 
as they do concerning space. The empirical philosophers 
teach that time is a generalization from observed succession of 



Time. 93 

events. This is true of our empirical knowledge of time; we 
learn to know a minute, a year, a century, and in this knowl- 
edge time, space, and motion are inseparably connected. 
When we say: "I can run so many yards, or repeat so many 
words in a minute," we mean, " I can do this while the clock- 
pendulum swings a certain number of times," or use some sim- 
ilar standard of measurement, thus comparing times with 
motions and with times, and the subjective succession with the 
external one. 

But the possibility of knowing these successions as such, 
and of making these comparisons, is the very thing to be ac- 
counted for; and we could never perform these mental actions, 
if we had not some native endowment in correspondence or 
congruity with the nature of things, beyond the mere ability to 
perceive one thing and then perceive another. To know two 
events in succession and compare them, requires consciousness 
and memory; but memory is knowledge of the past, and hence 
the first act of knowledge involves some obscure knowledge of 
what time is, or at least some action of the mind under the 
category or form of time. 

Kant taught that time, like space, is a form which the mind 
imposes on the events which it knows, empirically valid, but in 
itself an ideal existence only. The difficulties of this theory 
have been noticed under the head of space. Lotze attempts 
to escape these by denying that events are necessarily succes- 
sive. He says that our ideas (presentations, vorstellungen) of 
events are necessarily successive, and so we get an irresistible 
impression that the events themselves are in succession, that 
is, under the form of time. (Dictate, Metaphysik, §57.) 

But this is only ingeniously begging the question; no reason 
why events are successive to us can be assigned, except that 
they are really in succession. When we cognize a change in 
any object we know it as having a beginning and an end, and 



94 The Intellect. 

the parts in irreversible order, so that those which are last can- 
not be known as first. To say that this is a form imposed by 
the mind, and the events are not really, perhaps, in succession, 
is entirely gratuitous. 

Time has an onward flow, and can never run up stream, but 
must always run onward. This we know directly, and this is 
the intuition or a priori cognition of time. Our impression 
that events, when known, are real, and real in the succession 
as known, is irresistible and correct. Our estimate of the 
proportion of comparative time may be distorted by disorder 
of the brain, or by defect of perception, as in dreams, but such 
facts only render plainer the fact that time remains through all, 
a real relation, an eternal reality. The contrary cannot be 
proved, but is merely assumed by the ideal philosophers. 

That time is not ideal is shown by the following considera- 
tions: — 

i. We have decided that space is real, and, if so, time can- 
not be ideal. The same arguments apply for the most part, 
and the connection of the two is so intimate that one alone 
cannot be ideal. 

2. The same event may be perceived by many different 
minds, and by them known to be contemporaneous with sub- 
jective experiences or with other external events; and events 
are thus irresistibly and necessarily felt to have a common 
measure of duration, which is capable also of division and 
comparison, and therefore is objective. 

3. Time is, indeed, in one sense, a form or quality of the 
irmer experience of the mind. But this experience is condi- 
tioned in the main by external events, and is directly known to 
be so. When our experience is not controlled by constant im- 
pressions from the outside world, but runs its own course, as in 
dreams, all proportion of time-relations is lost, though the 
general intuition or concept of time remains. In a dream we 



Time. . 95 

seem to be an hour crossing a street, and no longer time in 
crossing the ocean. De Quincey, in his opium-reveries, seemed 
to live a hundred years in an hour. A long dream is often 
interpolated between a sensation which awakens us and our 
awakening, though to an observer the awakening seems instan- 
taneous. Time then must be real, since the mind is ordinarily 
dominated by events in this regard, and when it is not so, its ex- 
perience becomes fantastic and irrational. 

4. Memory, the most inseparable quality or power of mind, 
requires and implies time. 

5. The lower animals exhibit phenomena of the same order 
with reference to time, though incapable of idealism or ab- 
straction. A dog, if you strike him several times knows that 
the blows are not simultaneous. He knows time-relations in 
physical events, and knows nothing about time beyond these. 
"By no one fact," says President Bascom, "is the intellectual 
progress of man from the animal to the rational plan of life 
more clearly indicated than by the length of the periods he 
takes into consideration in his daily conduct. It is difficult 
to induce the savage to put forth exertions which provide for 
wants beyond those of the hour; while the civilized man is only 
too much disposed to forecast the wants of remote years, and 
weigh down the present with the work of providing for them." 
(Comparative Psychology, 234.) 

Like space, time is incapable of being denned. The defi- 
nitions usually given are tautological or incomplete. If we 
say; — " Time is that which makes events possible as succes- 
sive," this is mere tautology, for succession is the very thing 
to be explained. If we say; — "Time is an idea or form in 
the mind," it cannot be proved that it may not be this and 
also something more. We cannot define time or space " be- 
cause the very attributes which we must employ imply both. 
Every object and event has properties or attributes 



g6 The Intellect. 

which imply the existence of these entities. In knowing that 
these objects exist, we know that time and space exist as their 
actual conditions." (Porter, Hum. Intellect, 566.) 

Aristotle defined time to be the measure of motion. Dr. 
Reid said; — " We may measure duration by the succession of 
thoughts in the mind, as we measure length by feet and inches, 
but the notion or idea of duration must be antecedent to the 
measurement of it, as the notion of length is antecedent to 
its being measured." 

Dr. S. Clarke said; — " Space and duration are immediate 
and necessary consequences of God's existence, and without 
them his eternity and ubiquity would be taken away." 

" Sir Isaac Newton maintained that God, by existing, consti- 
tutes time and space." (Fleming.) 

Schopenhauer has with 'great ingenuity drawn up a list of 
axioms showing the curious parallelism between space and time, 
in twenty-eight pairs. We select a part of them from Pro- 
fessor Bowen's translation. (Modern Philosophy, 179.) 

1. There is but one time, and all times are parts of this one. 
Space, the same. 

2. Time cannot be thought away, but everything in time 
can be thought away or imagined as non-existent. Space, the 
same. 

3. Time has three divisions, past, present, and future. 
Space has three dimensions, length, breadth, and thickness. 

4. The present moment is without duration. The mathe- 
matical point is without extension. 

5. Time makes arithmetic possible. Space makes geometry 
possible. 

6. The indivisible (single) of arithmetic is the unit. The 
indivisible (single) of geometry is the mathematical point. 

7. Time has no beginning or end. Space has no limits or 
boundaries. 

8. Time has no rest. Space has no motion. 



Causation. 97 

9. Time itself has no duration, but all duration is in it. 
Space has no movement, but all movement is in it. 

10. Movement is possible only in time and space. 

11. Time is everywhere present. Space is eternal. 

12. Time in itself is empty or void, being perfectly inde- 
terminate. Space, the same. 

13. Time makes the change of attributes possible. Space 
makes the persistence or unchangeableness of substance pos- 
sible. 

14. We know the laws of both a priori. 

Time cannot be seen, felt, or heard; it is intelligible, not 

sensible, is known directly, like space, by an inexplicable act of 

the intellect. 

III. Cause. 

When our perceptions are conditioned by our own activity, 
not merely moving the organ to receive the sensation, as in 
sight and touch, but actually creating the condition of the 
sensation itself, as in the case of muscular resistance or press- 
ure, a new element is here introduced; the consciousness in- 
volved is different from what we have previously discussed. 
When we undertake to lift, or move, or compress any heavy 
or hard object, we receive from it muscular sensations due to 
its weight or solidity. But we also have a sense of effort put 
forth, a feeling of voluntary power, quite different from any 
consciousness involved in any other class of sensations. And, 
especially if we succeed in moving the object, there is a feel- 
ing that our voluntary effort has done something, has made a 
change in the external world, has exhibited power of efficiency, 
in a word, has become a cause. Cause, then, is a necessary 
element in some of our perceptions. 

But this is not all. The idea of causation necessarily 
and irresistibly arises in the mind on every similar occa. 
sion. For example, if I push a book along my table, I know 



98 The Intellect. 

that my hand exerts force, power, - efficiency, and actually 
causes the motion of the book. Now, suppose I roll a ball 
along the table. Its motion continues after the motion of my 
hand has ceased; yet I know intuitively, that is, directly and 
irresistibly, that this continued motion was caused by my hand. 
Again, suppose that the rolling ball strikes against another ball, 
and sets it in motion. In this case also I know, intuitively, 
irresistibly, that the change of state of the second ball from 
rest to motion, was caused by the first ball, as the motion of 
the first ball was caused by my hand. 

We do not mean that our knowledge of cause is derived 
entirely from the case of voluntary activity, and then carried 
over by inference or analogy to other cases. This is an error 
to which we shall refer later on. But the case of voluntary 
causation is easier to understand, because a part of the process 
appears in consciousness. 

We affirm that in every case where causation is simple 
enough to be readily traced, the conception of efficiejnt cause 
is equally a necessary element of all such perceptions. For 
example, if I see a croquet-ball moved by a blow from another 
one, I cannot help believing that the first ball caused the mo- 
tion of the second. But a good deal of mechanical knowl- 
edge is required to trace the motion of a locomotive to the 
chemical energy of combustion; a child or a savage might 
well suppose its motions voluntary. Yet when any compli- 
cated machine is once understood, we cannot help tracing 
causation through every one of its parts. 

" In our ordinary observation," says Lotze, " it is completely 
intuitive that a new motion is produced by the impartation of 
motion through a blow or impulse." (Dictate, Naturphiloso- 
phie, §17.) 

We admit that we cannot perceive the efficient force going 
over from, the oause to the object of its activity, nor explain 



Causation. 99 

how it goes over. "The nature of efficiency," says Lotze, "is 
inexplicable." We cannot hear, feel, or taste causation, any 
more than we can see, hear, or feel time or space; all we per- 
ceive, in the plainest cases, is the cause in action, and the 
effect. Causation is intelligible, not sensible. But it is not 
for that reason any the less real. " The concept of efficiency" 
[ Wirken\ says Lotze, " is indispensable to our comprehension 
of nature [ Weltmiffassung\^ and all attempts to deny the 
reality of efficiency and yet conceive the course of nature 
[Welt/auf] are abortive." (Dictate, Metaphysik, §46.) 

This "intuition" is irresistible because it is correct. This 
" necessary element of cognition " is a law of the mind because 
it corresponds to a law of the universe; and the mind, if it 
knows the world at all, must know it as it really is. Just as the 
mind perceives objects under space-relations because they ex- 
ist under space-relations. 

A cause is an efficient antecedent, or an assemblage of such 
antecedents (for causes are rarely if ever single), not simply an 
inseparable antecedent. 

But this is not all. Not only is causation real, but it is uni- 
form. The same causes, under the same circumstances, always 
produce the same effects. This axiom may be considered as a 
deduction from the axiom that causation is real efficiency, un- 
der the operation of the logical principle of identity. What- 
ever a thing is, that it will of course continue to be under the 
same circumstances. Whatever efficiency, active force, any- 
thing may have, that it will of course continue to have, under 
the same circumstances. If we see one ball pushed by another 
we cannot help believing that the first ball exerts actual power 
on the second, and that it will continue to do so, all things re- 
maining the same; that if the motion of the first continues, 
the motion of the second must continue also; that if the opera- 
tion be repeated under the same circumstances, the same re- 
sults will be repeated. 



ioo The Intellect. 

This axiom is stated by some writers as a second " necessary 
cognition" or "intuitive idea," parallel with the first. Some 
also make it universal, referring to all events whatever Presi- 
dent Porter, for example, says: " we assert that the mind intui- 
tively believes that every event is caused, that is, every event 
is produced by the action of some agent or agents." But he 
directs his argument chiefly toward proof of the reality of cau- 
sation, and does not keep the two points rigidly separate, but 
sums up thus: "If it [causality] cannot be resolved into some 
other relation equally general or more general than itself, we 
must conclude that it is original, and intuitively discerned 
and believed." (Human Intellect, 572-73.) This does not 
discriminate between the two axioms. 

It seems to us a decisive objection to this second axiom that 
it is a statement of a supposed general fact. According to 
our view of the necessary elements of cognition, the mind acts 
under them in connection with specific perceptions or thoughts. 
The mind knows space by knowing a material object under 
space-relations, because it cannot perceive such objects any 
other way. But it does not have intuitive knowledge of the 
fact that all matter exists under space-relations. We afterwards 
infer that fact as a ground of our knowledge of space-relations. 
So with causation; when we perceive a simple case of causa- 
tion, we necessarily know that- there is efficient activity being 
exerted, and that this will continue to be exerted and will pro- 
duce the same results, under the same circumstances. Our 
own view is that this is involved in the " intuition " or " neces- 
sary idea " of causation as a real, active, efficiency; and that 
the universality of causation, or the truth that every event has 
a cause, is an inference on this basis from our experience. 

Now it is admitted by philosophers of all schools that our 
belief in the reality of causation is original and irresistible to 
primitive thought. But many of them have held that this be- 



Causation. ioi 

lief, though irresistible, is fallacious. The whole sensational 
school, led by Hume, Brown, Mill, and Bain, declare that there 
is no more in causation than we perceive by the senses; that 
efficient causation is a figment of the mind; that invariable 
connection of antecedent and consequent is all that really ex- 
ists under that name in nature. 

"When a spark falls upon gunpowder," says Dr. Brown, " and 
kindles it into explosion, every one ascribes to the spark the 
power of kindling the inflammable mass. * But let any one ask 
himself, what it is which he means by the term, and, without 
contenting himself with a few phrases that signify nothing, 
reflect, before he gives his answer, and he will find that he 
means nothing more than that, in all similar circumstances, the 
explosion of gunpowder will be the immediate and uniform 
consequence of the application of a spark." (Lecture 7, p. 68.) 

Similar words might be quoted from many other writers. 
But the common-sense of mankind rejects the theory as inade- 
quate and idealistic, and will never accept it. Such .skepticism 
will always.be confined to philosophers, and even among them 
it is far from universal. Those who are not driven by the exi- 
gencies of a pre-assumed system, generally admit that the human 
mind is in some kind of correspondence with the universe, so 
that its normal action with reference to things must be correct. 

The fact is that Hume, having determined beforehand to 
account for everything by experience, without any a priori or 
necessary principles of cognition, and finding the problem of 
causation insoluble on that theory, was obliged to discharge 
cause of all its real meaning in order to bring it within the 
scope of bis theory. 

So Dr. Brown, in the words of Sir W. Hamilton, " professes 
to explain the phenomenon of causality, but, previous to ex- 
planation, he evacuates the phenomenon of all that desiderates 
explanation." Their successors have pursued the same easy 



102 The Intellect. 

method. But .even Mr. Fiske, the celebrated evolutionist, ad- 
mits that they have gone too far. 

"That matter, as objectively existing, may exert upon matter 
some constraining power, which, as forever unknowable by us, 
may be called an occulta vis, I readily grant. Thought is not 
the measure of things, and it was therefore unphilosophical in 
Hume to deny the existence of any such unknown power." 
(Cosmic Philosophy, I, 155.) 

Writers of this class, however, usually bring back implicitly 
that which they have explicitly denied and expelled. For they 
all admit that the sequence of antecedent and consequent is 
invariable in nature, so that the course of nature can be un- 
derstood and predicted. Mr. Mill says in his Logic: "To 
certain facts, certain facts always do and as we believe always 
will succeed. The invariable antecedent is termed the cause, 
the invariable consequent the effect." 

Now this invariability must have a ground or reason, and no 
ground for it can be conceived except reality of causation; all 
attempts to find another ground have failed. We shall refer 
to some of these attempts hereafter. 

Having degraded "uniform causation" to "uniform suc- 
cession/' these writers have sought for another formula for the 
ground of induction, the final axiom of all reasoning, and have 
found it in the phrase " uniformity of nature." Professor Bain 
declares that the uniformity of nature is known intuitively, and 
makes it the ultimate principle and postulate of all reasoning. 
Mr. Mill derives it from experience, though he makes it the 
basis of induction. But by thus leaving out causation from 
the axiom of causation, they have destroyed its validity. The 
complete uniformity of nature is by no means intuitively true. 
" That nature is uniform in her different departments and 
throughout her domain is by no means an instinctive belief. 
As intelligent and scientific, man has reached particular 



Causation. 103 

uniformities, as of the seasons, of tides, of comets, only after 
such induction as each case seems to demand. This he has 
done, not on the ground of uniformity of nature, for the 
question in each particular case was whether nature would be 
uniform in that case, but solely on the ground of the uniform- 
ity of causation." (Hopkins, Outline Study of Man, 169.) 

Mr. Mill, perhaps because his candor and fairness enabled 
him to see some of the difficulties of this subject which are 
lightly passed over by others of his school, seems to have 
fallen into some confusion of thought. Mr. Lewes mentions a 
remarkable instance of this. "That Mr. Mill was somewhat 
confused on this point, may be seen in his surprising conclu- 
sion that the orbital movement of a planet is not a case of 
causation." (Problems of Life and Mind, II, 340.) Again, 
Mill says in his Logic; — " The uniformity in the succession of 
events, otherwise called the law of causation, must be received 
not as a law of the universe, but of that portion of it only 
which is within the range of our means of sure observation, 
with a reasonable degree of extension to adjacent cases." 
But the " uniformity of nature " is a very different thing from 
the "law of causation." In the words of Dr. McCosh; — 
" The grand metaphysical question is not about the uniformity 
of nature, but about the relation of cause and effect." 

On the subjective side of this theory, namely its method of 
accounting for our belief in causation, we find these writers 
generally agreed in attributing it to association. 

Hume bluntly calls it the result of use and custom. Dr. 
Brown admits that there is an " original principle of our 
nature," which he calls "intuitive expectation," and that we 
believe in the causal connection of two events if we see them 
occur together only once, not merely from custom, but that the 
association is immediate and original. 

Mr. Mill derives the belief by induction, and denies that it 



104 The Intellect. 

extends further than induction carries it. " In distant parts of 
the stellar regions," he says, "where the phenomena maybe 
entirely unlike those with which we are acquainted, it would be 
folly to affirm confidently that this general law prevails." 
But he bases induction in the last analysis on inseparable as- 
sociation, and so does not differ essentially from Hume. 

We may perhaps admit- that association and induction are 
competent to account for the idea of causation as these writ- 
ers understand it, mere invariability of succession in nature, 
without prejudicing the argument for real and uniform causa- 
tion. And it is not always easy to determine in which sense t 
the term causation is used by them. What they attempt to 
account for by association, however, is the instinctive belief, 
which they declare to be fallacious, in the reality of causa- 
tion. 

The association-theory on this point is open to a similar 
objection with their theory of space. It overlooks the most 
important point, containing the real thing to be explained, 
that every one of the experiences from which they say this 
belief is derived, really implies its existence in full force. If 
we see a ball move after being struck by another ball, the be- 
lief that the first has caused the motion of the second and would 
do so again in like' circumstances, is just as irresistible on the 
first occasion as after a thousand repetitions. 

Dr. Brown, indeed, escaped this difficulty, but since he de- 
nied the reality of causation, he was left in the position of 
affirming an intuitive principle of our nature, and yet denying 
its validity, a contradiction which should lead to universal 
skepticism; for if the very powers of the mind are fallacious, 
all knowledge and all reasoning must be impossible. Or 
rather, if any philosopher declares that the faculties on which 
and with which he has built his system are deceptive, he can 
claim no value for the system. 



Causation. 105 

Causation, then, subjectively considered, is a priori in the 
sense that it is a power and an irresistible tendency in the 
mind to cognize objective causation on proper occasion, as 
real and uniform; a congruity in this respect between the mind 
and the universe. 

" A careful analysis of the causal judgment, as it is styled, 
reveals the fact that it is not a necessary inference, but a posi- 
tive affirmation of a fact. It's true test is self-evidence, and 
nothing but a perceived fact can be self-evident." (Professor 
Ormond, Princeton Rev., 1882.) 

And Air. Lewes says; — " All believe irresistibly in particular 
acts of causation. Few believe in universal causation; and 
those few not till after considerable reflection." 

It may also be truly said, in a certain sense, that our knowl- 
edge of causation is derived from experience, for it is only in 
and through experience that we know T anything about it, and 
when we say that causation is universal or that nature is uni- 
form, we are generalizing from experience. 

We have said that our knowledge of what causation is, as 
involving real efficient power, is derived from or rather given 
in our own sense of voluntary muscular exertion. Some writ- 
ers, especially the Frenchman, Maine de Biran, have attempted 
to show that our belief in the reality, necessity, and uniform- 
ity of causation, is derived by inference and induction from 
this subjective experience, that is, our volition. But this 
theory is open to the following objections. 

(1) Induction itself must rest on some axiom not derived 
from experience; namely, as w r e shall show in the proper place, 
the axiom that causation is uniform, which is either a part of 
the "causal judgment" or an immediate deduction from it. 
But the theory professes to account for this very axiom by in- 
duction. (2) This theory, if adopted, is inevitably pushed to 
the conclusion that all causation is spiritual and there are no 



106 The Intellect. 

material causes; that matter has no inherent forces: hence that 
there is but one agent in the universe, the Creator, who causes 
all events directly and voluntarily, — conclusions almost uni- 
versally rejected by philosophy as well as common sense. 

(3) Muscular exertion, or "volition,"' is a case of physical 
causation, and subject to the " causal judgment," the " intui- 
tion " of the reality and uniformity of causation, as much as 
any other. If I roll a ball against another, and the second 
ball is moved, I have an " intuition " or " necessary judgment " 
that the motion of the second ball is caused by the first, 
and that the motion of the first ball is caused by my hand, 
and that the motion of my hand is caused by myself, ego; 
how the motion passes over through the series is unknown. 
The only difference between the cases is that in one the proc- 
ess is given partly in consciousness and pailly in perception, 
in the other it appears only in perception. The spiritual prin- 
ciple of volition or " choice," has nothing to do with either. 
This runs up into a higher realm, and introduces to us a new 
kind of causation, where the effect is a spiritual slate and the 
cause an inexplicable act of personal will. 

Some celebrated theories concerning causation demand a 
brief* discussion. Sir W. Hamilton has discussed the theories 
of causation with his usual learning and vigor. He has made 
a list of eight possible theories; but as (according to President 
Porter) the division is more ingenious than correct, we do not 
copy it. His own doctrine is derived from that of Kant, and 
is too abstruse to be given fully here, but belongs rather to meta- 
physics. According to this view, when an object is presented 
to us, we necessarily know it as existing, and cannot conceive 
of it as non-existent in the past or the future; yet we know 
from experience that it did have a beginning in its present 
form. It is impossible to conceive either the beginning or 
annihilation of any part of the complement of existence 



Causation. 107 

possessed by any object. " But to say that a thing previously 
existed under- different forms, is only in other words to say, 
that a thing had causes." (Metaphysics, Bovven's ed., 554.) 

It is evident that this doctrine of the constancy of the sum of 
existence, either in the universe or in one object, is a vast as- 
sumption. It is only another form of one of the latest and 
most sweeping, not to say most doubtful, of the inductions of 
modern science. (See Bowne's Metaphysics, 107.) 

Again, this theory assumes, as Hamilton, expressly declares, 
two intuitive ideas or forms of thought, existence and time. 
It also requires the principle of the impotence of the mind, 
and the law of the conditioned, "the law that the conceivable 
has always two opposite extremes, and that the extremes are 
equally inconceivable." If causation really exists in nature, it 
is far more simple and natural to suppose that it is intelligible, 
knowable by the human mind directly. 

Hamilton's own "law of parcimony," otherwise known as 
"Occam's razor," "which forbids, without necessity, the multi- 
plication of entities, powers, principles, or causes," cuts down 
his theory of causation. It is simpler to assume it at once, as 
a fourth necessary element in cognition, with being, time, and 
space, than to assume so much from which to derive it. 

The most ingenious attempt to explain away the reality of 
efficient causation is the monadology of Leibnitz. This theory, 
indeed, was intended to explain also the union of soul and 
body, the nature of animal and vegetable life, arid all the other 
mysteries, physical and theological, of the universe. A monad, 
according to Leibnitz, is one of the ultimate elements of ex- 
istence, either physical or spiritual; a supersensual entity, 
neither a pure, hard atom, nor a mere idea, nor an immaterial 
spirit, but partaking of all three natures. These monads were 
created by the Supreme Power all different, and each one en- 
dowed with active force. " The Deity conferred upon his 



io8 The Intellect. 

creatures 'from the first a certain measure of efficiency, which 
is the ultimate principle of all the various phenomena that they 
produce." Hence the career of each monad is predetermined, 
and it pursues its own course from the beginning, with the ap- 
pearance of exerting and receiving efficient activity, but with- 
out the reality of it. 

Monads, on this theory, are of different orders, correspond- 
ing to different orders of being, from a stone to a human body 
and soul. In a crystal, or a plant, or an animal body, there is 
a governing monad, or one which is said to govern, because 
" all the others act together harmoniously, as if they were 
directed by one central power." In the lower orders sensation 
and thought are latent, "in the human soul they rise to full 
consciousness." 

This strange mixture of physics and metaphysics seems too 
fantastic to be seriously offered as an explanation of causation 
or of the relation between soul and body, and is indeed no 
longer so put forward. But it contains some very remarkable 
anticipations of "recent scientific theories. It rests on the 
doctrine of continuity; each monad pursues its career without 
a break; there can be no leaps or sudden transitions in nature. 
" What is called the uniformity of physical law is never broken." 
But this is equivalent to modern evolutionism. Again, the 
recent doctrine of heat as a mode of molecular motion pre- 
supposes molecules like Leibnitz's monads, full of spontaneous, 
active force. And Darwin's " cell-gemmules " and Herbert 
Spencer's " physiological units " are only Leibnitzian monads 
of a higher order. "They are now held up as the most ad- 
vanced results of inductive science, or, if you will, as the sup- 
posed limits or goals, toward which the sciences depending on 
observation and analysis are tending and preparing the way. 
But to the eagle-eyed thought of Leibnitz, they were necessary 
deductions from the single axiom, first propounded by him as 



Causation. 109 

dominating the universe of existing things, the principle of suf- 
ficient reason. " (Bowen, Modern Philosophy, 118-125.) 

'•'Pre-established Harmony" is the phrase which describes 
Leibnitz' substitute for causation. 

Another celebrated theory to account for all things, and es- 
pecially the interaction of bodies with one another, and of 
mind with matter, is that of Monism. This is the doctrine 
that all real being is one, and all apparently separate entities, or 
elements, or atoms, are but manifestations of this being "which 
alone is self-existent, and in which all things have their being. 
This being, as fundamental, we call the infinite, the 
absolute, and the independent. In calling it the infinite we do 
not mean- that it excludes the co-existence of the finite, but 
only that it is the self-sufficient source of the finite. In call- 
ing it the absolute, we do not exclude it from all relation, but 
deny only external restriction and determination. Everything 
else has its cause and reason in this being." (Bowne, Meta- 
physics, 131.) 

Lotze (whom Professor Bowne follows rather closely), says 
that it is impossible consistently to conceive of interaction be- 
tween two elements which are independent of one another, 
self-existent. " The states of a cannot go out to b, and vice 
versa. ... If action at all is to be made to seem pos- 
sible, this assumption of the self-existence of things must be 
utterly denied. ... And this can only be accomplished 
through the assumption that all individual things are substan- 
tially one, . . . that they are from the beginning modifi- 
cations of one single being, which we provisionally designate 
by the names, the Infinite, the Absolute. . . . Action be- 
tween two finite beings is thus only, apparent, not real. In 
reality the Absolute acts upon itself." (Dictate, Metaph. §48.) 

This theory is evidently at the opposite pole from that of 

Leibnitz, and incurs the danger of lapsing into pantheism. In 
8 



no The In m i f.ct. 

this extreme form its most celebrated modern supporters have 
been Spinoza, Schelling, and Hegel, Many, however, profess 

to hold it in a sense consistent with the personality of God, 

Aristotle divided causes into four kinds, a distinction often 
referred to in philosophy, and with which the student should 
be familiar. They are [O material cause, or that out of which 
anything is made; (a) formal cause, or the form, idea, arche- 
type, or pattern of a thing: (3) efficient cause, or the principle 
of change or motion winch produces the thing; (4) final cause, 
or the end or purpose for which a thing is made. (Fleming.) 
Efficient cause, the third in the order above, is of course 
that which we have been discussing. The fourth, final cause, 
or design in nature, must be briefly noticed. 

FKLEOLOGV. 

The doctrine of final causes, or design in nature, commonly 
called Teleology, has been the subject of much discussion in 
recent years. Formerly, nearly all philosophers held that the 
adaptations found throughout nature, by which the parts of the 
universe* minister to one another, working together in a chain 
of causation, are proof that the scheme of things has been 
planned by intelligence as well as upheld by power. 

••'I had rather believe."' said Lord Bacon, "all the fables in 
the Legend and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this 
universal frame is without a mind. . . . For w r hile the 
mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may 
sometimes rest in them, and go no further; but when it be- 
holdeth the chain of them, confederate and linked together, it 
must needs fly to Providence and the Deity." (Essay 16.) 

In more recent times, the progress of physical science, in- 
troducing the conceptions of law, uniformity, development, 
and evolution, has weakened the belief in design, and has been 
supposed to weaken the argument for it. Indeed, some scien- 
tific men have undertaken a polemic against the teleological con- 



Teleology. hi 

ception, which they have carried on in a spirit that has merited 
and received the name of " teleophobia." 

No doubt there have been some crude statements of the 
theory of design in nature. Sometimes the whole universe 
has been subordinated to human interests, and sometimes a 
specific purpose has been assumed, such as a mere display of 
power, or the pleasure of the Creator, in creative action. But 
"it is especially necessary that those who oppose teleology 
should deal with its scientific [well-reasoned] forms, and should 
not waste their attacks upon forms which have never kept up 
with the advance of the investigation." (Euken.) 

A correct statement of the doctrine of design is not at all 
affected by the progress of science, the extension of the realm 
of causation, or the hypothesis of evolution. But rather, the 
more all natural events are seen to be joined together in a 
single scheme, the more wonderful does that scheme become, 
and the more the mind " must needs fly to Providence and 
the Deity." The old view of nature saw in it a number of 
separate kingdoms, and a series of separate creations. The 
modern view, after extending the boundaries of each one of 
these kingdoms almost indefinitely, joins them all in a vast 
unity. But the vastness of this unity, does not, as some seem 
to suppose, make it self-existent, without an intelligent design 
or Cause; nor does this remove it from human thought any 
further than before. 

Teleology has nothing to do with efficient causation, but 
belongs to a higher sphere of thought. The positive argu„ 
ment for design in nature, as for the existence of an intelli- 
gent, personal Creator, belongs to Natural Theology. 



ii2 The Intellect. 

IV. Identity and Similarity. 

The fact was mentioned in introducing the subject of sen- 
sation that the activity of the mind in sensation is a discrimi- 
nating one. The very process by which an impression be- 
comes known to the mind, that is, becomes a sensation in the 
full sense of the word, is a change in consciousness, in other 
words a conscious change in the sentinent organism. But 
this implies two states, not identical but different, and either 
similar or dissimilar; involving not only an impression occa- 
sioned by some object, but a knowledge of something about 
that impression. 

" We know that if the idea of red and at the same time the 
idea of blue are excited in the mind, the two do not combine 
to form the idea of violet. . . . Every comparison, es- 
pecially every relation between two elements, presupposes that 
both points of relation remain separate, and that a represent- 
ing activity passes from one to the other, and the mind be- 
comes conscious of the change which it experiences from the 
idea of a to that of b. We do this when we compare red with blue, 
and there arises the new idea of qualitative similarity which 
we ascribe to both. If we see at the same time a strong light 
and a weak one, we do not have the sensation of a single light 
which is the sum of both; but both remain separate, and, 
passing from one to the other, we are conscious of another 
change of state, a quantitative more-or-less of the same im- 
pression. 

" Finally, if two exactly similar impressions are separately 
made upon us, they do not blend into a third; but because we 
compare them as before and in the transition from one to the 
other find no change of state, there arises in us the new idea 
of identity. 

"These new ideas which we may consider as of a higher or- 



Identity and Similarity. 113 

der, are by no means resultants of the interaction of the origi- 
nal simple ideas, as in mechanics a third motion is com- 
pounded of two others. The first ideas, as mere impulses, 
arouse in the mind a reaction, through which arise the new 
ideas ©f similarity, identity, and their opposites." (Lotze, 
Dictate, Psychologie, §21-22.) 

These two principles, identity with its inseparable correla- 
tive diversity, and similarity with its inseparable correlative 
dissimilarity, are necessary forms of all knowledge, in its most 
rudimentary form of simple sensation, or the elaborately com- 
bined and associated form of acquired perception. "Saying 
what a thing is, is saying what it is like, what class it belongs 
to." (H. Spencer, Psychology, II, 131.) 

Simple perception may know an object as distinct from 
self, as having real being, and as existing under space-relations. 
But complete perception knows an object as the same or dif- 
ferent, similar or dissimilar with others; recognizes it as be- 
longing to a new class, or as a new object hitherto unknown. 

This is often called the relativity of knowledge, a phrase 
which is used, however, in a great variety of meanings. 
Mr. Mill means by it the doctrine, " that we only know any- 
thing as distinguished from something else; that two objects 
are the smallest number required to constitute consciousness; 
that a thing is only seen to be what it is by contrast with what 
it is not." But we hold u self-evident that the mind can per- 
ceive one object alone, distinguished only from the ego. 

Sometimes the relativity of knowledge means the doctrine 
that we can only know objects so far as they are related to our 
faculties, and so far as we have faculties of knowledge. This 
no one will deny, but it should be called, as Dr. McCosh sug- 
gests, "the limited knowledge of man," not " relativity." 

Sir W. Hamilton applies this name to the Kantian doc- 
trine that we can never know the ultimate reality of things, 



ii4 The Intellect. 

the thing-in-itself, but only phenomena, which phenomena may, 
for all we know, be partly due to the action of our minds. 
This is sheer assumption. The thing-in-itself, apart from its 
phenomena or attributes, is not only unknowable but impossi- 
ble. We do know the true reality of an object, through 
its qualities, so far as we know it at all. Again, " To suppose 
that in perception or cognition proper we mix elements de- 
rived from our subjective stores, is to unsettle our whole con- 
victions as to the reality of things. By assuming this middle 
place between Reid and Kant, this last of the great Scottish 
metaphysicians has been exposed to the fire of the opposing 
camps of idealism and realism." (McCosh, Defence of 
Fundamental Truth 234.) 

The last-mentioned meaning of "relativity of knowledge" is 
probably the most common one, and the most appropriate. But 
some writers confuse this meaning with the one first mentioned, 
and it would be well if so ambiguous a phrase could be ban- 
ished from philosophy. 

Many writers also confuse the application of the principles 
of identity and similarity, to sensation, as being a change of 
consciousness, and their application to perception, as a cogni- 
tion of an object that is different from self, and similar or dis- 
similar with other objects. The distinction is a clear one and 
is worth making. 

These principles are necessary laws of intelligence, so far as 
we can know anything about intelligence in our present state of 
being. Accordingly we find that the minds of the lower ani- 
mals act under the same conditions. If you strike a dog 
several blows, he knows that they are not all one and the same 
blow. There are involved here, then, time, number, and 
identity-diversity. If the dog .sees you or any one else pick 
up a similar stick on another occasion, he knows this stick is 
like the other one, and expects the like pain, which he runs 



Identity and Similarity. 115 

away to avoid. His knowledge may be merely association, 
but it involves the principles of similarity and of self, just as 
truly as the feelings of pain, fear, and hatred. 

In short, all sensations and perceptions which take place in 
a material organism and give knowledge of material things, 
take place under the relations of identity-diversity or similar- 
ity-difference; which, 'therefore, viewed in connection with 
the mind, may be called categories, or a priori concepts, or 
intuitive ideas; and viewed in connection with things may be 
called relations. (The word relation, however, is often used 
in a quite different meaning, as when gravity is. said to be a 
"relation" between two bodies.) Not conditions of the ex- 
istence of things, but conditions of things as related to us. 
We call them, with space, time, and cause, necessary elements 
of cognition, but do not assign precisely the same origin or 
scope to each. 

Professor Bain has founded his entire system on these prin- 
ciples. "The primary attributes of intellect are (1) conscious- 
ness of difference, (2) consciousness of agreement, and (3) re- 
tentiveness. Every properly intellectual function involves one 
or more of these attributes and nothing else." (Mental Science, 
82). He elsewhere defines agreement by similarity, and uses 
the term identity, while he develops " retentiveness," into the 
power of association. He strives, with great ingenuity, to show 
how, with these, the whole structure of knowledge is built up. 

We have seen reason to believe that he has but little success 
in accounting for space, time, or cause, as subjective principles. 
But it is especially to be remarked as an important inconsist- 
ency in this scheme, that it really assumes original and neces- 
sary principles just as truly as the opposite theory, which Bain 
so vigorously combats. The only difference is that it does not 
assume so many of them. 

The question in what identity consists, has received a good 



n6 The Intellect. 

deal of attention. Different kinds of identity have been dis- 
tinguished; as identity of a stone or any inorganic substance, <of 
a tree., an animal, of a person. It is plain that identity of an 
organized being cannot consist in absolute sameness of mate- 
rial particles, for these are constantly changing; besides, a tree 
may lose many of its branches and leaves, and yet be the same 
tree, and a man who has lost an arm or a leg is still the same 
man. 

John Locke held that identity in plants and animals consists 
in continuance of the same organization, and that life consists 
in that organization in which all the parts minister to one 
another. (Essay, Bk. II. C. 27, §4.) This comes very near 
to the modern doctrine that " the phenomena of living bodies 
can be explained by the mechanical and chemical forces be- 
longing to matter." It also approaches the modern definition 
of an organism as "a structure in which all the parts are mut- 
ually means and ends." 

Personal identity is still more difficult of definition. Con- 
sciousness, in connection with memory, testifies to the reality 
of personal identity, and declares that the subject of past ex- 
periences is the same with the subject of present memory and 
present experience. "As the knowledge of personality is 
given in consciousness, that of personal identity is secured by 
the aid of memory." (Calderwood.) 

Locke makes personal identity to consist in consciousness. 
But this is insufficient,. as is shown by the extravagances into 
which he -is led by it. For he says: "It must be allowed that 
if the same consciousness can be translated from one thinking 
substance to another, it will be possible that two thinking sub- 
stances may make but one person." . . "But if it be 
possible for the same man to have distinct, incommunicable 
consciousness at different times, it is past doubt that the same 
man would at different times make different persons." He 



Necessary Elements of Cognition. 117 

also argues that if we suppose two distinct consciousnesses 
acting in the same body, one by night the other by day, 
the day-man and the night-man would be two as distinct per- 
sons as Socrates and Plato. (Essay, Bk. II, C 27, §23.) 

The fact is, everybody knows by his own experience what is 
meant by identity, though nobody can define it or say exactly 
in what it consists. 

The relation of Similarity is capable of analysis, and has 
been divided by Mr. Herbert Spencer, and provided with a 
characteristic nomenclature. His disciple, Mr. John Fiske, 
states it as follows. Similarity and dissimilarity are divided 
into: (1) "cointension and non-cointension, as when we per- 
ceive that two sounds are equal in degree of loudness," or that 
two temperatures are different; (2) "co-extension and non- 
co-extehsion, as when " the color of an orange is recognized as 
accompanied " by sweetness and not by viscidity; " (3) " con- 
nature and non-connature, as when greater warmth is mentally 
assimilated to less warmth, but distinguished from blueness or 
roughness." (Cosmic Philosophy, II, 118.) 

General Remarks on the Necessary Elements of 

Cognition. 

Next to the theory of vision, that department of psychology 
which has made the greatest progress is this, the doctrine of 
"a priori concepts," "intuitive ideas," or, as we prefer to call 
them, necessary elements of cognition. It is also to be noted 
that this is the border-land between psychology and metaphy- 
sics. 

The doctrine of "intuitive ideas" was vigorously assailed by 
John Locke. But the mode of the attack, and also of the de- 
fence, shows how ill-reasoned, vague, and incorrect were some 
modes of thought current at that time, and, indeed, not wholly 
unknown even at the present day. 



n8 The Intellect. 

One of the so-called intuitive truths on which Locke spends 
his strength most freely, is the fact that a thing cannot be and 
not be at the same time. To the modern reader this proposi- 
tion, however true, seems of a very different rank. For it is 
plainly a logical rule, amounting to this, that contradictory at- 
tributes are not to be predicated of the same subject. Locke 
proves that the rule does not exist consciously and formally in 
the mind of the ignorant, the child, or any but a philosopher; 
which is not at all the same thing as proving that they do not 
think under the rule, when they think correctly. 

The argument for the a priori cognition of space, time, and 
cause, as at present understood, is not affected by Locke's rea- 
soning. He himself, moreover, in the positive, constructive, 
part of his Essay, tacitly assumes principles of thought which 
are called a priori or intuitive by more modern and more sys- 
tematic writers. 

Locke's polemic was of vast importance in philosophy, and 
was in a sense completely successful. But, far from settling 
the question, it led the way to better definitions, more careful 
thought, and deeper study. The two schools still keep up their 
traditional opposition, but each has partly shifted to the other's 
ground, and sensationalism must be said to have lost the battle. 

The more recent empirical philosophers, who consider them- 
selves the special followers of Locke, have attempted to ac- 
count for space, time, and cause, subjectively considered, with- 
out admitting any necessary or a priori elements of cognition. 
We have already examined this attempt in connection with the 
subjects of causation and space. 

It is important to notice that writers of this school, while 
denying intuitive ideas, yet rely upon some principles of 
thought which are really of the same order. Professor Bain 
not only, as we have seen, admits a knowledge of identity and 
similarity as original to the mind, but also declares that the 



Necessary Elements of Cognition. 119 

uniformity of nature is an innate principle. " We can give no 
reason, or evidence, for this uniformity, and, therefore, the 
course seems to be to adopt this as the finishing postulate. 
And undoubtedly, there is no other issue possible." (Logic, 
671.) 

Mr. Mill cannot perhaps be quoted so specifically to the 
same effect; but in his Logic his statements are often qualified 
by such phrases as "it is more rational to suppose," and "with 
a reasonable degree of extension to other cases." And " the 
observant student notices that in the most important portions 
of his discussions he is ever and anon introducing, with a 
naive innocency of bearing, at once refreshing and irritating, 
under the names of ' belief/ ' persuasion,' ' natural prompt- 
ing,' and the like, the very a priori, universal, organic, rational, 
and recreative element, which he would exclude, and which he 
then seeks to make it appear that he has deduced, either 
strictly, or, in his phrase, (a strange phrase for a logician to 
employ) ' as far as any human purpose requires/ from pure 
observation and ' objective,' physico-psychological ' experi- 
ence.' " (Morris, British Thought and Thinkers, 325.) 

Mr. Herbert Spencer recognizes the impossibility of ac- 
counting for these principles by association alone, and ad- 
vances the theory that they are the product of association and 
inheritance combined. This has been called the " psycho- 
genetical hypothesis," by Mr. Lewes who speaks of "inherited 
intuitions," and " laws of thought registered in modifications 
of structure which have been transmitted from parent to child." 
But this theory does not escape the chief difficulty of the 
theory of association pure and simple. It only gives a longer 
time for association to work in, and does not at all show how 
it can have any power at any time to evolve a necessary prin- 
ciple of thought. What is to be accounted for is not the con- 
crete knowledge of space, time, cause, etc., but the fact that 



120 The Intellect. 

the mind cannot help acting under these forms and categories 
in perception and thought, even in the lowest stages of mental 
life. 

" In the contest over this concept, the question is not about 
something known previous to experience. . . . Just as 
little do we dispute about a something ready-made in the 
mind, for we recognize here only a striving activity. . . . 
But we discuss as the main question, not only of philosophy, 
but of all science, and of psychology especially, the fact that 
in mental activity something essential, original, and legitimate 
is recognized. It shows that one is behind the times in his 
knowledge of modern philosophy, if he presents the dilemma 
whether knowledge is furnished ready-made in the mind or 
is created from without, for he thus leaves out of considera- 
tion the question to the development and defence of which the 
most prominent thinkers of the last century have devoted their 
strength." (Euken, Fundamental Concepts, translation, 90.) 

Association can do nothing to account for these principles 
of cognition, thus received and defined, even though it be 
prolonged backward through the endless ages of evolution. 
The limits of association were tacitly admitted by .Mr. Mill 
when he admitted that on that basis two and two might possi- 
bly equal five. 

In short, there is no safe ground between the bold sensa- 
tional theory of Coridillac, which resolved all states of the 
mind into sensations by simply calling them such, and a rea- 
sonable recognition of a necessary element in thought and 
perception; " for Hume did certainly show that a consistent 
empiricism must become sensational, and Kant, that experience, 
in Locke's sense, involves a multitude of a priori elements." 
(Bowne, Metaphysics, 508.) 

On the other hand, the so-called a priori school have greatly 
changed their ground since the time of Locke, made impor- 



Necessary Elements of Cognition. 121 

tant concessions and introduced valuable distinctions. The 
more recent method is thus expressed by President Porter. 
" While these truths stand first in the order of thought, they 
are last to be reached in the order of time. This implies that 
we are, in some sense, indebted to experience for their ac- 
quisition. It is equally clear that experience does not give 
them authority." (Human Intellect, 504.) First uncon- 
sciously but necessarily used in concrete perception and thought, 
they are afterwards abstracted and generalized into laws or 
principles. 

It was formerly the custom (and some traces of the custom still 
remain), to treat these principles all in a lump, assuming that 
they are all alike in origin and nature. We have shown above 
how, in our opinion they should be treated each by itself. We 
append a table of these principles, with the connection in 
which each is first exercised and known. 

1. Being, or substance, or real existence; — Through any 
perception that gives knowledge of the external world. We 
spoke of this under the Qualities of Matter. 

2. Self; — Through any mental activity. We spoke of this 
under Consciousness. 

3. Space; — Through any real perception involving voluntary 
exertion. 

4. Time; — Through the series of states of consciousness. 

5. Cause; — Through resistance and the perception of ac- 
tion. 

6. Identity and similarity are relations conditional to all 
knowledge. 

Of the others which are frequently enumerated, number 
and quantity need no exposition, and are merely relations of 
objects; right belongs to ethics; the infinite and the absolute 
to metaphysics; the idea of God to theology; the idea of 
beauty to esthetics. 



122 The Intellect. 

It will have been noticed that we are not satisfied with the 
usual names applied to these principles. The term "intui- 
tion" is objectionable because it has come to have a vague 
and semi-mysterious implication, as though intuition were a 
short road to knowledge, a superhuman way of attaining to 
truth. It is true, however, that the real meaning of the word 
intuition is not open to the same objections. It means, " im- 
mediate knowledge, direct perceiving or beholding of an ob- 
ject or principle " (Calderwood); " the immediate affirmation 
by the intellect, that the predicate does or does not pertain to 
the subject, in what are called self-evident propositions." 
(Hamilton.) The corresponding German word (Anschauung) 
is constantly used, since Kant, to denote perception under the 
forms of time and space. " Intuition," therefore, is a word 
liable to misunderstanding at best. 

The term " a priori concept" has some evident advantages; 
but these principles are active in cognition long before they 
become concepts at all, which, indeed, they need not do to be 
useful, but only to- become authenticated. The term "idea" 
is too vague and uncertain for use in philosophy, and has never 
recovered from being overworked by John Locke. 

The term '• principle " is perhaps without serious objection; 
but the phrase "necessary element" seems to suit better our 
view that the mind operates under certain conditions, some of 
which are imposed upon it by its intimate connection with a 
physical organism, some by the nature of the objects of its 
knowledge, and some by the nature of all thought. 

Sir W. Hamilton has enumerated no less than twenty-three 
different names which have been applied to these principles 
by different writers. 

IS THERE A "REGULATIVE FACULTY?" • 

Since the time of Coleridge it has been common among 
English writers to use the name of Reason for a supposed 



Necessary Elements of Cognition. 123 

faculty of producing " intuitive ideas." Sir W. Hamilton em- 
ployed the term Regulative Faculty. 

If our analysis has been correct, this theory of a special 
faculty is untenable and unnecessary. The mind in each of its 
kinds of activity must act under certain conditions, and must 
evolve whatever products the conditions and objects of its ac- 
tivity require.. When the mind knows an external object, it 
knows it in space, and cannot know it otherwise. There is no 
need of a special faculty to produce the space, nor is space a 
product of the mind, but a necessary condition of material 
existence, and hence inseparable from preception. So the 
mind when it judges, must judge according to the relations of 
identity and similarity, and can judge in no other way, for 
these are conditions of all judgment. 

To find out what these principles are, and distinguish them, 
and show their universality, is the work of generalization and 
analysis, exercising the various other powers of the mind. 

If any one affirms that he is conscious of forming these 
ideas or applying them by a special faculty, we can only say 
that we can detect no such power in ourselves, and, according 
to our theory, it is unnecessary. 

. CRITERIA OF FIRST PRINCIPLES. 

We need some standard or rule of judgment by which to 
decide what principles are entitled to places on our list. It 
has already been intimated that the chief criterion is necessity. 
The intellect is " constrained by the spontaneous workings of 
itsnatureto receive them as true." (Porter.) It is not meant by 
this that their reality and validity are never denied in terms, 
but that those who deny them and try to disprove them, make 
use of them in the very process of their reasoning. Nor are 
these principles used only by philosophers. As all who speak 
at all must speak according to some kind of grammatical rules, 
even though they do not know what grammar means, so all 



124 The Intellect. 

who think or perceive must do so under the forms, laws, or 
categories appropriate to each act, whether they can or cannot 
define and describe them. Few reach that speculative stage 
where these principles become definite, generalized concepts, 
and most who do so are pledged to one school or another long 
before reaching so advanced a stage of thought. But "we are 
justified in appealing from the philosophy of men to their 
words and actions. What all men inadvertently confess in 
their casual assertions, what they imply in the very form of 
their language, . . what is assumed in all investigations 

and reasonings without the attempt to give any reasons for its 
truth, — these are all taken [by us] to be or to involve univer- 
sal and necessary truths of Intuition, however difficult it may 
be to define them correctly, to reconcile them with the dicta of 
a received philosophy, or to show their place in any order of 
systematic arrangement." (Porter, Ham. Intel. 510.) We 
have applied this method of reasoning, to some extent, to the 
doctrines of Mr. Mill and Professor Bain. 

We have attempted to show in discussing each of these 
principles that it is a necessary principle, and we judge that to 
be the only and sufficient criterion. Many writers, however, 
have laid down three or more criteria. President Porter gives 
three, universality, necessity, and logical dependence and origi- 
nality. Dr. Cocker gives five, self-evidence, originality, sim- 
plicity, necessity, and universality. Sir W. Hamilton lays 
down but one, which he calls by the double name of univer- 
sality and necessity, and says that it was first proved by Lei- 
bnitz. It is evident that necessity alone is sufficient if it can 
be proved; also that universality can hardly be susceptible of 
complete proof, though an approximation to such proof would 
go far to raise a presumption of necessity. Various other cri- 
teria are thus useful for proving necessity, and may be called 
tributary to the one true and sufficient criterion, necessity. 



Doctrine of Perception. 125 

DOCTRINE OF PERCEPTION. 

We are now in a position to state our view of perception in 
a connected way, with the proper limitations and distinctions. 

The lowest and simplest form of mental action is sensation. 
Note the term, mental action. Some writers held that sensa- 
tions are impressions, which combine themselves, transform 
themselves, interpret themselves, evolve out of themselves not 
only knowledge but consciousness. We hold that the simplest 
sensation is an act, a function, and implies an actor, a subject; 
that knowledge pre-supposes some one who knows, who has 
interpreted sensations into knowledge under the necessary 
forms and categories of thought. 

A sensation requires an ego as a condition of its existence, 
and involves a knowledge or feeling of this ego. Some writers 
use the term sensation in a narrower sense, to denote only the 
impression of the sense-organ, and say that we are conscious 
of our sensations, or unconscious of them, as the case may be, 
and that having a sensation and knowing that we have it are 
two different things. This use of the term is objectionable. 

The method of sensation is discrimination between different 
states of consciousness, implying the aqtion and the validity of 
the categories of identity and similarity. 

It is probable that the adult mind never experiences a sim- 
ple sensation, wholly separate from others and unaccompanied 
by associative suggestion. Our simple sensations become 
firmly connected with one another and with various ideas, in- 
terpretations, feelings, imaginations, etc., so that when they are 
repeated, or even when similar ones are experienced, a great 
deal of knowledge is revived or suggested by association, be- 
yond that which is conveyed directly by the single sensation in 
point. This is called acquired or cultivated perception. 

When the sense-organ is voluntarily moved or modified to 



120 The Intellect. 

adapt it to the object, as in rolling the eye or moving me 
fingers, simple natural perception of the external world takes 
place. We perceive it directly, under the category of being, by 
an inexplicable act of the mind, as something real, existing 
outside of us. This is the true meaning of the term substance. 
What the object is in its qualities, what its properties are, we 
learn by interpretation of the sensations occasioned by it. 

We also, in this kind of perception, know the external ob- 
ject under the form oi space, under space relations, as exist- 
ing in space. " External world " means, normally, objects ex- 
ternal to the particular sense-organ; and the other parts of the 
body are at first perceived and explored just the same as other 
objects. Later on in our experience a distinction is estab- 
lished between the body and the rest of the external world. 

When we exercise or resist force we recognize self or the 
moving object as a cause; that is, we know it as the cause of 
the change which has occurred, in addition to perceiving it as 
being and as being in space; and we know tins cause not as 
mere succession, .but as actual efficiency acting uniformly. 
Some writers hold that our belief in causation as real efficiency 
is a result of long-continued association. But they also hold 
that real efficiency is a delusion, that there is no connection of 
events in nature but invariable succession. 

THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 

We shall now briefly describe some of the more noted 
theories of perception, in the historical method. But some 
preliminary remarks and definitions will be necessary. 

A distinction must be drawn between the metaphysical part 
of a theory of perception and the psychological part, though 
they are in practice inseparable. The psychological part 
has been more backward in development, and has indeed been 
for the most part a late product. It is only in recent times 
that light and sound have been correctly understood, and 



Theories of Perception. 127 

hence a correct doctrine of the most important sensations 
has been beyond the reach of all but very recent philosophers. 
Indeed, the psychological part of perception may perhaps be 
all brought under the theory of vision. It has even been said 
that "theories of sense-perception are to a great extent theo- 
ries of vision." (Porter.) 

The sense of sight is so complicated, involving not only a 
special sensibility to light and color, but so many different 
kinds of muscular sensation, that it presents for study a won- 
derful combination of phenomena, optical, physiological, and 
mental. Accordingly, since the true theory of vision has 
been established and almost universally accepted, many im- 
portant questions concerning perception may be regarded as 
settled. 

But by the term " theory of perception " is usually meant, 
theory of the knowledge of the external world in perception. 
This has been in dispute among philosophers from the earliest 
times. How mind can come into contact with matter, how 
knowledge and thought arise in consequence of the presence 
of an external object, how much the mind contributes and 
how much the object, — these difficult, probably insoluble 
questions, constitute the metaphysical part of a theory of per- 
ception. 

The solution of these questions has always been seriously 
affected by the condition of philosophy at the time, the reign- 
ing metaphysical and theological dogmas of an age usually 
permeating all its speculations. 

A preliminary classification of theories is necessary. These 
fall into two great classes, theories of immediate or presenta- 
tive perception, and theories of mediate or representative per- 
ception. This distinction refers to the psychological process, 
not to the physical one; to what goes on in the mind, not what 
goes on in the air or the ether or the nerve. 

Immediate, presentative, or intuitive perception denotes a 



i28 The Intellect. 

direct knowledge of the object in perception. This object, 
however, may be held to be either real or ideal, a real exter. 
nal object according to the natural belief of men, or a sub- 
jective ideal object, a phenomenon in or of the mind. Those 
who hold the object to be externally real may be called real- 
ists, as believing in a material, external, extended object; or 
natural realists as holding the natural, primary opinion con- 
cerning the external world; or natural dualists as opponents of 
the theory of monism or absolute identity. 

Those who deny the reality of the external object may be 
called idealists as opposed to realists, or as believing in noth- 
ing but ideas; or monists as believing in the absolute identity 
of the subject and object, the unity of the universal essence* 

Idealists, again, may differ in various ways, holding that the 
mind and the object are both ideal, being correlated phases of 
the same essence; or that the mind is the author of all its 
own perceptions; or that all perceptions are infused in the 
mind by the immediate act of a supernatural power. 

These two theories, natural realism and idealism, are, says 
Sir W. Hamilton, "the only systems worthy of a philosopher; 
for, as they alone have any foundation in consciousness, so 
they alone have any consistency in themselves." 

The representative theory of perception may be said to be 
a mixture of the other two. Those who hold to it' believe in 
the reality of the external world, yet deny that we can know it 
except by inference. They may thus be called cosmothetic 
idealists, or hypothetical realists. They all hold that the object 
in perception is not the external object itself, but a representa- 
tion or idea or image of it in the mind. Obviously the source 
and nature of this image may be the subject of various sub- 
sidiary hypotheses. 

Sir W. Hamilton has drawn out these distinctions to 
the last degree of tenuity. (Philosophy, Wight's ed., 264. 
Metaphysics, Bowen's ed., 352.) 



Historical Sketch. 129 

HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

It* is important for the student to gain some acquaintance 
with the greatest names in philosophy and their relative great- 
ness and position. Hence our sketch, though necessarily very 
brief, will not be confined strictly to theories of perception. 

We pass over the earliest Greek philosophers, about whom 
little is really known. 

Plato, (429-347 b. c.) the greatest writer and thinker of 
antiquity, was not a system-maker, and it is not easy to decide 
from his dialogues what his real opinions were. He made a 
distinction between two kinds of knowledge, that of the 
senses, which he held to be illusive and untrustworthy, and 
that of the intellect, which he held to be certain, lofty, and 
rational. He has been called an idealist, but that is on ac- 
count of his doctrine of ideas, and not with reference to his 
doctrine of perception; for he taught that sensation is a joint 
product of the action of the external object and the sentient 
agent. He did not, however assign a definite part to each 
of these elements in perception. 

Plato is remarkable for the ^beauty and versatility and dra- 
matic power of his style; for the vast range of his intellectual 
activity; for his surprising anticipations of modern discoveries 
and theories; for his insight into moral and religious truth, 
and his firm belief in the unity and goodness of God; and for 
his wonderfully stimulating power over many of the finest 
minds in all subsequent ages. 

Aristotle, (384-322 b. c.) made advances in the knowl- 
edge of the operation of the senses, especially vision, in which 
he approached wonderfully near to the modern theory that 
vision depends on the vibrations of an invisible medium. It 
has always been in dispute, however, w T hether Aristotle meant 
that perception is through a corporeal emanation from the ob- 



130 The Intellect. 

ject, thus anticipating modern scientific knowledge in the case 
of sight and hearing, — or that perception is through a mental 
form, an incorporeal impression, thus anticipating some of the 
modern representationists. 

Aristotle held to a common or general sense, underlying all 
the special senses, for which some recent writers use, in Eng- 
lish, the term "ccenaesthesis." He also taught that imagination 
(phantasy) pictures and retains before the mind the impressions 
of sense, thus being a condition of memory. 

He opposed reason to sense, teaching " that sense is re- 
stricted and individual, thought free and universal; and that 
while sense deals with the concrete and material aspect of 
phenomena, reason deals with the abstract and ideal. But 
while reason is thus in itself the source of general ideas, it is so 
only potentially " — it requires sense-presentations which it 
" unifies and interprets." (Wallace, Outlines of' Philosophy of 
Aristotle, 91). 

Aristotle is remarkable as the author of the science of formal 
logic, which has received no substantial improvements since his 
day; for his interest in every department of physical science 
and the zeal with which he Hamined and classified natural 
objects; for his practical and political wisdom; for the wonder- 
ful ascendancy of his influence and the unreasoning deference 
paid to his authority throughout many centuries of the Chris- 
tian era, after the re-discovery of his works. 

The schoolmen, through the middle ages, for the most part 
followed Aristotle as closely as they could, though not always 
understanding him correctly, and being somewhat influenced 
too, by the less precise, less practical, more poetic spirit of 
Plato. Being largely absorbed in theology, and having scarcely 
any more scientific knowledge than Aristotle had possessed 
they were able to add almost nothing to his psychological 
doctrines, and could only dispute about "intelligible species'* 
or " perceptible forms." We cannot give space to any of them. 



Historical Sketch. 131 

Descartes (1576-1650)5 is commonly called the father of 
modern philosophy. Putting aside the authority of Aristotle 
and all others, he doubted everything. " There would have 
been little merit in such an assumption of independence at a 
later day, after it had become the fashion; but it was an un- 
precedented step at the beginning of the seventeenth century/'' 
(Bowen.) 

His doubt, however, was not that of the skeptic; he did not 
doubt for the sake of doubting, but in order to test systemat- 
ically the foundations of 'truth. "My whole design" he said, 
"looks to the attainment of certainty." He was " the prince 
of dogmatists; " his method was dogmatic or deductive, not 
inductive. He found the first basis of certainty in the 
axiom, cogito, ergo sum; thought, the existence of which cannot 
be denied, implies a thinker, a thinking being, an ego. This 
personal existence becomes " the type of all reality, and the 
measure of all certainty." 

He afterwards developed this into a doctrine of innate ideas. 
But " by innate ideas he does not mean ready-made ideas, 
complete images or pictures, in the mind of the infant. He 
means that the mind infused by the Deity into every human 
body has certain natural predispositions which compel it to 
adopt certain beliefs, as soon as it begins to reflect and to 
exercise its faculties. Such are the ideas of God, of substance, 
of unity, and a host of others, which he never essayed to 
enumerate." (Mahaffy, Descartes, 165.) 

He drew a sharp distinction between matter and mind, 
teaching that extension is the essence of matter and thought 
the essence of mind. The mind, finding itself the subject of 
certain affections called sensations, infers that external objects 
exist as the cause of these sensations. The body, however, is 
a part of the external world, a mere machine or automaton, 
acted upon by the qualities of objects, and undergoing changes 



132 The Intellect. 

which are interpreted by the mind. The medium through 
which sense-impressions are conveyed to the brain is the 
"animal spirits," an invisible, imponderable fluid. How these 
sensations are imparted to the mind he does not explain. 

In thus assuming to know the essence of matter and mind 
Descartes opened the door to vast errors. The logical conse- 
quences of such assumptions would be too much for any sys- 
tem to support; and though he himself drd not follow them to 
the end, his followers did so, and soon involved themselves in 
contradictions and fantastic theories, as we shall see. "There 
is scarcely a theory of sense-perception," says Pres. Porter, "in 
which some erroneous assumption of Descartes may not be 
traced." 

He did not teach that perception is by means of representa- 
tive ideas, but such is plainly the natural outcome of his sys- 
tem, and some of his followers soon began so to hold. He 
taught that in perception we only infer the existence of an 
external object, with the aid of habit and association. He did 
not himself push the natural implications of this further than 
to say that it is possible to suppose there is no external reality 
which corresponds to our ideas of matter. But it w T as not 
many years before Berkeley arose to make this dogma world- 
renowned. 

Descartes was indeed a truly great man. Besides stimulat- 
ing and directing several generations in philosophy, he led the 
way in physics and mathematics, being the originator of the 
modern application of mathematics to physics, and of algebra 
to geometry. " We to whom the scholastic theories are things 
long past, cannot now feel the novelty and the boldness of 
Descartes' conception, that all nature can be represented in 
algebraic formulae, and its laws expressed in definite equations." 
" He swayed not only his followers but his opponents for a 
whole century; and he gave to certain sciences, especially to 



Historical Sketch. 133 

optics, to physiology, and to physical astronomy, an impulse 
which has never been exhausted." (Mahaffy, Descartes, 69, 
204.) 

His followers in philosophy, accepting his opposition be- 
tween mind and matter, began to hold that neither could ever 
act upon the other, and to devise theories to account for their 
apparent interaction. 

Leibnitz (1646— 17 16), is usually mentioned in connection 
with Descartes, though the interval in .time is somewhat great, 
and Leibnitz lived long enough to reply to Locke, and dispute 
with Newton the honors of the calculus. 

To solve the great problem of body and mind, and other 
problems as well, he invented his celebrated hypothesis of pre- 
established harmony, already described. He held that God 
has pre-arranged from eternity parallel courses of events, so 
that, although matter and spirit cannot act upon one another, 
yet "a mode of one always coincides with a mode of the 
other." 

This can hardly be called a theory of perception, but is 
rather a hypothesis of how to get along without perception. 

Leibnitz' great influence in philosophy was chiefly through 
his metaphysical doctrines. His psychological suggestions were 
chiefly worked out by his followers, a few of whom we shall 
mention. But if this wonderful man did little for psychology 
it is because he did so much for almost every other department 
of human knowledge. Of him it was said that he drove all 
the sciences abreast. He shared with Sir Isaac Newton the 
glory of discovering the infinitesimal calculus, and the notation 
which he devised was far superior to that of Newton. His 
theory of monads seems like an anticipation of the modern 
atomic theory, of Darwin's cell-gemmules, and of Spencer's 
physiological units. His doctrine of space and time is almost 
the same with that of Kant. He seems to have seen that heat 



134 The Intellect. 

is a mode of motion, and that space is occupied by an impon- 
derable ether. Matter, he taught, is nothing but force, which 
is now the latest theory of metaphysical physics. His scheme 
of optimism, embodied in a theodicy or vindication of the 
Divine government of the universe, though ridiculed by Vol- 
taire in his " Candide," is celebrated and influential in literature 
and theology to this day. 

He was a statesman, a politician, an instructor of princes, a 
man living in courts, acquainted with diplomacy, and familiar 
with affairs. 

This brief sketch displays a marvelous genius, perhaps 
equaled in comprehensiveness by Aristotle alone among the 
sons of men. If such a man could rind no way of explaining 
the interaction of body and mind but the fantastic hypothesis 
of pre-established harmony, it goes far to show that this knot, 
though anybody can cut it, is to be untied by no human mind. 

The most immediate follower of Leibnitz was Wolf ^679- 
1754), who, in a mechanical way, developed some of his 
master's doctrines into a system of representational psychology. 
We only mention him as a transition to the next name. 

Herbart, (1776-1841), may be called the next in this suc- 
cession, developing and applying the hints of Leibnitz, though 
some call him a successor of Kant, to whom he owed much. 

He was a very able and extremely ingenious thinker, and his 
speculations have not received, especially in this country, all 
the attention they merit. His psychology is derived from 
Leibnitz' monadology. " The soul is a simple, spaceless es- 
sence, of simple quality. It is located at a single point within 
the brain. When the senses are affected, and motion is trans- 
mitted by the nerve to the brain, the soul is penetrated by the 
simple, real essences which immediately surround it. Its qual- 
ity then performs an act of self-preservation in opposition to 
the disturbance which it would otherwise suffer from the — 



Historical Sketch. 135 

whether partially or totally — opposite quality of each of these 
other simple essences; every such act of self-preservation on 
the part of the soul is an idea. All ideas (representations) 
endure, even after the occasion which has called them forth 
has ceased. When there are at the same time in the soul 
several ideas, which are either partially or totally opposed to 
each other, they cannot continue to subsist together without 
being partially arrested; they must be arrested, that is become 
unconscious, to a degree measured by the sum of the intensi- 
ties of all these ideas with the exception of the strongest." 
(Ueberweg, History of Philosophy II, 265.) 

Herbart applied mathematics to the discussion of sensations 
# r . 

and ideas, to a surprising extent. His philosophy may be 

called an attempt to combine idealism and materialism. 

Lotze (1817-1881), adopted some of the methods of Her- 
bart, especially the use of mathematics, and certainly reached 
similar conclusions on many points, though he strenuously 
denied being Herbart's disciple. Lotze stands very high in 
recent German philosophy, and is noted for candor, breadth, 
acuteness, ingenuity, and moral purpose. He was perhaps 
more nearly a follower of Leibnitz than of any one else. We 
have already quoted him many times. 

We must now ascend again the stream of philosophy to 
Descartes, and trace the development of his hints in Mal- 
ebranche, parallel with Leibnitz, and in Locke, who took a 
decidedly different direction. 

Malebranche (1638-17 1 5), was another who pushed Car- 
tesianism beyond itself. According to him, mind, having no 
extension, cannot be touched or affected in any way by matter; 
they are separated from each other by the "whole diameter of 
being." He accounted for perception by the "vision of all 
things in God," and this is the usual catch-word of his philos- 
ophy. What we perceive is not objects themselves but ideas 



136 The Intellect. 

or representations of objects. These ideas do not proceed 
from the object, nor are they produced by the mind, nor by 
the constant action of divine power, but they "exist in God, 
and human minds behold them there, through their union with 
him." (Bowen.) 

If this be a theory of perception at all, it is plainly one of 
representative perception, with strong leanings toward idealism 
and Pantheism. 

Malebranche was a great writer. "His writings, which are 
voluminous, had great popularity and success, for he was one 
of the founders and masters of ornate and eloquent French 
prose, the contemporary and rival of Pascal, Bossuet, and 
Fenelon, and perhaps superior to them all in lofty flights of the 
imagination, in the wealth and vivacity of his illustrations. . 
Perhaps no other writer, except Plato, suffers so much 
by cold analysis and abridgment." (Bowen, Modern Phil., 74.) 

Spinoza (1632-1677), a Spanish Jew by descent, whose 
family, exiled through persecution, had settled in Holland, 
developed the philosophy of Descartes in another direction. 
By an obvious step he reduced Descartes' two substances, 
mind and matter, to one substance with two fundamental attri- 
butes, extension and thought, thus becoming the leader of 
modern Pantheism. His metaphysics has had vast influence 
in the history of philosophy, but it does not concern us here, 
and his psychology is not of sufficient importance or clearness 
to occupy our time. We mention him as displaying the re- 
markable way in which the suggestions of Descartes were 
taken up and developed in many directions by the acutest 
minds of the age. 

John Locke (1 632-1 704), is usually thought of as a fine 
example of English common-sense, from his using common 
every-day language without technicalities. In this respect, 
however, his success has not been encouraging, for his neglect 



Historical Sketch. 137 

of terminology and technicality involved him in obscurity and 
contradiction, and has caused endless uncertainty and contro- 
versy. 

The catch-word of his system is, " all knowledge is derived 
from sensation and reflection." The most important novelty 
of his great work, the Essay on Human Understanding, was 
the denial of innate ideas, which occupied the first book, and 
which was a direct reply to Descartes. His ablest critics hold r 
however, that he introduces under the head- of reflection, those 
a priori concepts which, in a crude and unphilosophical form, 
he had disproved at the outset. 

" He protests against innate ideas, but nevertheless admits 
all that Descartes had ever maintained, — viz., that the human 
mind must infallibly attain certain universal truths in the ordi- 
nary exercise of its powers. . . . Though he hardly men- 
tions Cartesian theories except to refute them, his whole essay 
teems with assumptions taken from the system he decries." 
(Mahaffy, Descartes, 203.) 

By "reflection" Locke is admitted to have meant introspect- 
ive or reflective consciousness. 

By his denial of intuitive ideas he has had an immense in- 
fluence on subsequent speculation, and the whole modern 
sensationalist school dates its own origin from him and looks 
up to him as its great original. J. Stuart Mill calls Locke 
"the unquestioned founder of the analytic philosophy of 
mind." Like most of his followers, he misunderstood the 
doctrine of intuitive ideas, at least in the real intention of its 
supporters and the more careful statements of recent times. 

He assumes that the mind resembles in the first place a 
piece of white paper, on which ideas are to be written by sen- 
sation, in which the mind is passive. But in fact " he finds it 
impossible to carry out his first fancy of the mind as a purely 
neutral tint, or as a mere faculty of passive receptivity. . . 



138 The Intellect. 

Mind, for Locke, is like a mirror, conscious of the 
images reflected on its surface. The images do not explain 
the consciousness. Accordingly, the ' white paper ' theory, so 
far as it seemed to imply that mind was blankly passive and 
receptive, and only that, is practically modified in the progress 
of Locke's inquiries. The ' white paper ' turns out to be 
capable of ' operations,' and to possess 'powers.'" (Morris, 
British Thought and Thinkers, 196.) 

Indeed he made these admissions in such a way that some 
have claimed them to be his true doctrine. His " prevail- 
ing tendency, however, is certainly not in this direction." 
His admissions are unconscious and his great work has proved 
a fountain of empiricism and skepticism. Yet it has greatly 
advanced the truth also by the controversies it has kindled, 
compelling better definition and statement. 

Locke held that the objects of perception are the qualities 
of matter, the primary qualities being known directly and the 
secondary through them, the obscure idea of substance being 
involved. He did- not probably hold a theory of representa- 
tive perception by means of ideas, though much of his lan- 
guage seems to imply this, and he is so understood by many. 

Though Locke embroiled himself with the clergy by declar- 
ing that the substance of the soul might possibly be material, 
and by rejecting the usual proofs of the existence of God, yet 
he was a man of irreproachable life, and a Christian believer. 

Berkelev (1684-1753), is known as the great idealist. Ac- 
cepting Locke's theory or supposed theory of representative 
and passive perception, he saw that on this theory matter was 
an unknown and unknowable something, the occasion of our 
perceptions, and that it was not only impossible to prove that 
any such thing really exists, but absurd to impute causation to 
such an inert, passive unperceived substratum as this " sub- 
stance," in which the qualities of matter were supposed to in- 



Historical Sketch. 139 

here. Matter, then, as the substratum of qualities, the cause 
of sensations, is, he says, an unnecessary hypothesis. Ma- 
terial substance, being an abstract idea, and its qualities exist- 
ing only in the perceiving mind, the universe can only exist in 
the mind of the Divine Being, and can have no real separate 
being of its own. Thus Berkeley did not, as is usually stated, 
deny the existence of matter, but spiritualized, or idealized it. 

Berkeley's positive contributions to the theory of perception 
have been spoken of under Vision, and their value is ines- 
timable. But his theory has also proved fruitful in meta- 
physics, having been the source of the whole vast stream of 
modern idealistic philosophy. 

Through Hume he awakened the mighty speculative genius 
of Kant, who taught that the mind, by a complicated process, 
constructs its own perceptions, the qualities of matter being 
relative to our faculties only, and the reality of matter a 
^noumenon" unknown and unknowable. This scheme of 
cosmothetic idealism, or ideal realism, soon became absolute 
idealism in the hands of his successors, (the greatest of whom 
was, Hegel) and was reared into the most extraordinary struct- 
ure of abstract thought the world has ever seen. Thus phi- 
losophy, having made the tour of Great Britain, through Locke 
in England, Berkeley in Ireland, and Hume in Scotland, re- 
turned to Germany, enriched and strengthened, to run a won- 
derful course in its chosen land. 

Hume (1711-1776), the prince of skeptics, applied Berkeley's 
mode of reasoning to the phenomena of mind as well as mat- 
ter, and thus produced a system of skepticism the most 
thoiough-going ever framed. 

We must now return and trace the principal stream of phi- 
losophical tendency from the works of John Locke, namely, that 
which developed the sensationalistic or materialistic side of his 
philosophy. He was not a materialist, though he declared 



140 The Intellect. 

that matter might possibly think, and that the soul might pos- 
sibly be made of matter. 

But his doctrine that all knowledge is derived from sensa- 
tion and reflection received a most unexpected development. 
It was not noticed that reflection with him was really introspect- 
ive consciousness, finding. or producing a priori concepts or 
necessary truths, and it was promulgated, on Locke's authority, 
that all knowledge is derived from sensation alone, that all the 
faculties of the mind are but transformed sensation and asso- 
ciation. 

This scheme is called empirical, as deriving everything from 
experience, a term introduced by Kant; or experiential, a term 
recently gaining ground (perhaps because the word empirical 
has another application, namely, to a physician who experiments 
on his patients, a quack); or sensational, as deriving all knowl- 
edge from sensations and all faculty from sensation; or asso- 
ciational, as accounting for the transformation of sensations by 
the law of association; or materialistic, as not really leaving 
room for any immaterial soul or mind. 

This development of the more obvious and popular side of 
Locke has been the strongest current in English thought, and 
was almost the Only current of French thought throughout the 
eighteenth century. A great similarity runs through this whole 
school of writers. 

Condillac (17 15-1780), was the chief apostle of this new 
gospel of sensation in France. He taught that the mind is 
passive in sensation, that all ideas are but transformed sensa- 
tion, and yet that bodies are only collections of sensations, 
being nothing but qualities, without any substratum of real be- 
ing, and qualities being entirely subjective. 

This curious combination of materialism and pseudo-ideal- 
ism is common to many others of the school, even down to 
the present time. Huxley propounds it in the crudest fashion. 



Historical Sketch. 141 

J. Stuart Mill confessed its difficulties as insuperable and yet 
adhered to it. Bain attempts to defend it, and Herbert Spencer 
takes it for granted. 

Dr. Thomas Brown (17 78-1 820), professor at Edinburgh, 
was strongly under the influence of this kind of thought. He 
was remarkable for the eloquence and enthusiasm with which 
he lectured, and the great popular reputation which he ac- 
quired throughout Great Britain and the United States. 

Brown was the first properly to distinguish the muscular 
sensations, from which he derived our knowledge of space and 
of the external world. like his school in general he confused 
sensation and perception and denied efficiency in causation. 
He had remarkable ingenuity as well as eloquence and great 
boldness. He was treated with great harshness of criticism by 
Hamilton, who, of course, had Brown greatly at advantage by 
his superiority of learning. Hamilton accused Brown of plag- 
iarism; but if the sins of philosophers in this way should be 
marked, who shall stand? Not even, it is hinted, Sir W. Ham- 
ilton himself. 

James Mtl^ (1773-1836), is chiefly known now as the 
father of John Stuart Mill, but his treatise is one of the best 
of his school, free from the prolixity of Brown, and less in- 
tended for the popular ear. 

J. S. Mill (1806-1873), a great name in English thought, 
was not a special student of psychology. His greatest works 
are his treaties on political economy and logic. His inacquaint- 
ance with the history of philosophy led him into errors, and 
his criticisms of Hamilton were often ineffective. He is very 
remarkable in psychology for the frankness with which he ac- 
knowledged the inadequacy of his own, and his father's system, 
to answer the great questions of philosophy. • 

He defines mind as "a series of feelings, or, as it has been 

called, a thread of consciousness, however supplemented by 
10 



142 The Intellect. 

believed possibilities of consciousness." But he admits that 
this theory of mind " has intrinsic difficulties. . . . which 
it seems to me beyond the power of metaphysical analysis to 
remove." And he adds, " if we speak of the mind as a series 
of feelings, we are obliged to complete the statement by call- 
ing it a series of feelings which is aware of itself as past and 
future." "The truth is, we are here face to face with that 
final inexplicability at which, as Sir W. Hamilton observes, we 
inevitably arrive when we reach ultimate facts." (Examina- 
tion, I, 262.) It seems plain to us that Mr. Mill made this 
particular inexplicability for himself, though we admit that 
there are enough of them in the universe ready-made; but as 
stated by him it is more, it is an absurdity. 

He declares that our irresistible belief in the reality of the 
external world is a product of association. (I, 237.) He de- 
fines matter therefore as a "permanent possibility of sensation. 
If I am asked whether I believe in matter, I ask whether the 
questioner accepts this definition of it. If he does, I belie w 
in matter. ... In any other sense than this I do not." 
(I, 243.) "The belief in such permanent possibilities seems 
to me to include all that is essential or characteristic in the be- 
lief in substance." (I, 246.) This assumes that the only 
thing to be accounted for is the power which matter has of 
occasioning sensations, and also implies a wrong conception of 
what a sensation is, a false use of the term sensation. " Being- 
is thus reduced "to less than its own shadow, namely, only to 
a ' permanent possibility ' (whatever that may mean) of its 
shadow, projected in the form of feeling." (M*orris, British 
Thought and Thinkers, 330.) 

We have referred to Mr. Mill so often in the preceding pages 
that it is not necessary here to discuss his psychology further. 

Alexander Bain (1S1S-), Professor at Aberdeen, an asso- 
ciate, disciple, and friend of J. S. Mill, is a voluminous writer 



Historical Sketch. 143 

on the phenomena of mind. Adopting the associational 
theory he has very ingeniously strengthened some of its weak 
points. 

He insists upon a principle of spontaneous activity in human 
nature, which he makes a " primitive element of the Will." 
This may, perhaps, partly meet the objection against the sen- 
sational system, that it makes sensations active but the mind 
passive. 

He teaches that it is natural for man to believe; that we are 
irresistibly impelled to believe in what we perceive or what is 
told us, until corrected by experience. The " intuitionist " 
form of this principle would be that the testimony of conscious- 
ness is correct beyond appeal, so far as it goes, and the errors of 
perception are to be explained in other ways. 

He holds to three primitive principles, consciousness of 
agreement and of difference, and retentiveness; thus implicitly 
introducing two categories of the understanding, identity-di- 
versity, and similarity-dissimilarity, and surreptitiously assum- 
ing, under memory, the principles of Self and Time. 

He holds that the basis of induction is a belief in the uni- 
formity of nature; but the only rational ground for such uni- 
formity is reality of causation, which he denies, and the belief 
in which he derives from experience, having first reduced it to 
mere succession. 

His system thus really rests upon necessary principles of 
cognition, and so shows, it seems to us, a decided progress in 
the school, though a progress under the surface and as it were, 
in spite of itself. 

Herbert Spencer (1820-), has devoted his life to the 
elaboration and defence of the theory of evolution. His 
Psychology is more taken up with the development of nerves 
in a mass of organized matter, and the evolution of mind out 
of "nervous shocks," than with psychology in the usual sense. 



1 44 r riiE Intellect. 

His theories of the origin and nature of mind will be better 
discussed later on. His theory of perception makes it involve 
classification. 

"Special perception is possible only as an intuition of a like- 
ness or unlikeness of certain present attributes and relations 
[sensations] to certain past attributes and relations." (II, 132.) 
In another place this " intuition " becomes association. " The 
primary and essential association is between each feeling and 
the class, order, genus, species, and variety of preceding feel- 
ings like itself. ... A feeling cannot form an element of 
mind at all, save on condition of being associated with prede- 
cessors more or less the same in nature." (I, 256.) 

Every perception, he says, implies a judgment, a " saying 
what a thing is." " And the saying what a thing is, is the say- 
ing what it is like, what class it belongs to." (II, 131.) 

He holds to the immediate knowledge of the external world 
in perception, " The thing primarily known is not that a sensa- 
tion has been experienced, but that there exists an outer ob- 

ject." (11,3690- 

He admits that there is a real substratum of material exist 
ence, but affirms that this reality is unknown and unknowable 
The Cosmic Philosophy of Prof. John Fiske is a more lumin 
ous exposition of this system than Mr. Spencer's own, and 
comparatively free from tedious prolixity. 

We must now turn to the succession of writers who have 
opposed both the idealistic and the sensational systems arising 
from Locke, and who belong chiefly to the school of the so- 
called Scottish philosophy. 

Thomas Reid (17 10-1796), Professor at Edinburgh, ex- 
plicitly reintroduced those " intuitions " which Locke had 
implicitly assumed, under the authority of common-sense, or 
the necessary beliefs common to all men. He was a natural 
realist in his doctrine of perception, though not always clear or 



Historical Sketch. 145 

consistent. He taught that the mind is active in perception, 
but did not distinguish between natural and acquired percep- 
tion. 

He is chiefly known to the present generation through the 
elaborate commentary of his greatest disciple, Sir W. Hamilton, 
but his services to philosophy were important, though less 
brilliant and less renowned than those of some lesser men. 

Sir Wm. Hamilton (1788-1856), was the foremost in learn- 
ing and power of all the philosophers whom Great Britain has 
produced. He left no complete treatises, and his opinions 
have to be gathered from his lectures to students and his notes 
on the works of Reid, whose disciple he was in the main. His 
writings have been gathered up in Wight's " Hamilton's Phi- 
losophy," and Bowen's " Hamilton's Metaphysics." 

His metaphysical theories were largely derived from Kant. 
His law of the conditioned he expressed thus: " All that is 
conceivable in thought, lies between two extremes, which, as 
contradictory of each other, cannot both be true, but of which 
as mutual contradictories, one must." To illustrate this he 
drew up a table of contradictions similar to Kant's antimonies. 

In regard to perception, he was a natural realist, holding that 
we have a direct knowledge of the non-ego, yet there is some 
dispute whether by the non-ego he meant the qualities of mat- 
ter only, or matter as being. He insisted on the distinction be- 
tween sensation and perception, and thus did good service. 

.We have quoted Hamilton so often already that further 
notice here is unnecessary. 

Noah Porter, President of Yale College, may be called 
the true successor of Sir W. Hamilton. Like him, he has 
great learning but is not a system-builder. Like him, he is a 
natural realist but qualifies this position as follows: " In original 
perception, the object directly apprehended is the sensorium as 
excited to some definite action." He does not explain, as we 



140 The Intellect. 

understand, how the change is made from perceiving the sen- 
sorium to perceiving the object through the sensorium. For 
he insists that the object in complete perception is not the 
qualities of matter, but the external world itself, as being. He 
makes prominent the distinction between sensation and percep- 
tion, and also that between natural and acquired perception. 

He teaches that the intellect is active in " sense-perception;" 
that sensation is always either pleasant or painful. He dis- 
tinguishes two kinds of consciousness, and three non-egos. 
He uses, throughout, the word ''soul,'' where others use '-mind." 

President Porter's great work, The Human Intellect, is of 
immense value for reference, and by far the greatest psycho- 
logical work yet produced in America. 

Many other names of great philosophers might be referred 
to, but we have preferred to select a few of the greatest, in the 
hope of impressing upon the student, (i) That philosophy has 
occupied many of the greatest minds of the race. (2) That its 
conclusions are of practical importance in life. (3) That 
psychology is not unprogressive, but advances from age to age 
in the definiteness of its problems, in the clearness of its con- 
clusions. A vast deal of vagueness and obscurity has been 
dissipated, and men know, at least far better than of old, what 
they are disputing about. Moreover, on some topics, as the 
sense of sight, substantial unanimity has been reached; while 
on others great concessions have been made by the principal 
schools. 



PART II. 

REPRESENTATIVE POWER. 



The representative power may be defined as the power 

which the mind has of entering into conscious states which are 

similar to its former states or to combinations of them. It is 

best treated under the heads of Memory, Association, and 

Imagination. 

I. MEMORY. 

Memory has by some been subdivided. Sir W. Hamilton 
divides it into three separate powers, called Conservative, 
Reproductive,, and Representative- But of these three the 
first two are only auxiliary to the third, and by themselves use- 
less, even if really existing. 

It would be of no use to preserve knowledge if it could not 
be reproduced, that is, brought up again by the unconscious 
power of association; it would be of no use when thus associ- 
ated, if it could not be represented, that is, brought fully into 
conscious possession. Moreover, the way in which retention 
takes place is so wholly unknown, and so entirely out of con- 
sciousness, that it is a gratuitous assumption to say that there 
is a separate power of the mind for this purpose. 

It is better then to use ''retention" or "retentiveness" of the 
simple capacity of not forgetting, which is not an act of the 
mind at all. 

The word " memory," if used in psychology, ought proba- 
bly to be restricted to this meaning. " Recollection ' ; and 



148 The Intellect. 

"reminiscence" are commonly used of the act of recalling any 
fact formerly known, by means of association, and are gener- 
ally defined as voluntary reproduction. But strictly speaking 
there is no such thing as voluntary reproduction; all we can do 
is to set in motion the automatic, unknown machinery of as- 
sociation, and wait for it to produce the result. 

Memory, in the full, complete sense, or Recollection, im- 
plies four things. (1) A state of consciousness in past time. 
(2) The return of a representation of that state to conscious- 
ness, not exactly the same state itself. (3) The intuitive knowl- 
edge that this new state is a representation of something past, 
involving the element of time. (4) The recognition of the 
past state as having belonged to the same ego, involving the 
element of self. 

Some would place betveen the first and second another con- 
dition of recollection, namely the retention of some trace or 
sign of the first state by which it may be recalled. But of 
such a trace we really know nothing. All we know is that we 
experienced a certain state, and when a proper stimulus occurs, 
starting the right train' of association, a representation of that 
state appears in consciousness, but not the state itself. 

It is taught by some recent writers that memory is a repro- 
duction of the same state, only weaker. This is an error. 
We insist upon the self-evident fact, that the state of mind 
called memory is not the same in kind as that called presen- 
tation, or perception, or any original experience, but is a re- 
presentation, as different from presentation as the "idea " of a 
tree is from a tree, or the picture of a man from a man. 

It is often stated by recent writers on the subject that memory 
is the renewal of past sensations and the ideas they have ex- 
cited. But memory does not reprodrce sensations. If a sen- 
sation be really reproduced, in the literal meaning of the term, 
it is even then a new sensation, not the same one; and if it be 
represented, the product is not a sensation at all. 



Memory. 149 

Thus, if you are nauseated on seeing a friend go on board a 
ship, that is because the sight of the ship, with all the associa- 
tions of sea-sickness formerly experienced, excites reflex sen- 
sations just like the former ones. But they are new sensations, 
not identical with the old ones; and they are real sensations, 
not mere representations of old ones. Memory proper has 
nothing to do with such a case. 

If the name of an absent friend is mentioned, and you 
picture his face before you in the mind, that is imagination, not 
memory. But neither is it sensation. If the representation 
of his face becomes so vivid as actually to excite reflex sensa- 
tions, so that you think you see him. before you, that is hallu- 
cination, not memory. The number of persons who have im- 
agination strong enough to recall a face so as to paint it, 
is very small; though very many can compare the image so 
produced with " memo'ry " (in the popular sense) and decide 
as to the faithfulness of the picture. It is easier, too, to recall 
the expression of a face than to picture in the imagination a 
representation of the features, because the expression is a men- 
tal product in the first place. 

When we wish to recall a smell, a sound, a taste, etc., we 
" recall " first the object which produced it, and sometimes the 
representation excites reflex sensations very distinctly. 

It is very difficult to recall a word by the mere sound of it 
as heard, or the looks of it as seen, if the meaning is unknown. 
Few can do it at all, and they seem to do it by imagination, 
reproducing the sound or form of the word "before the mind's 
eye or ear." 

It is the " idea," the mental product, the presentation, which 
is reproduced in memory, in the form of a representation. If 
this is strong enough it may excite a reflex sensation, like the 
original one, not identical with it. The representation of a 
sensation or group of sensations is imagination, an imaging 



150 The Intellect. 

forth by the mind to itself. (Carpenter, Mental Physiology, 

43 1 -) 

All the products of the representative power are subjective, 

thought objects, subject-objects. They cannot be compared 
with object-objects of any kind; they cannot be described. 
They may be compared with other subject-objects, sensations, 
perceptions, emotions, as men may be compared with trees, 
houses, beasts, birds. But the two classes of objects are in- 
commensurable. 

It has been remarked by various writers, including even 
Hamilton, that the wonderful thing and hard to account for, is 
not remembering, but forgetting. This remark springs from 
the physical analogies which have long been common in con- 
nection with this subject, and which modern science has not 
weakened. The memory used to be compared to a receptacle, 
a casket; to shelves and pigeon-holes- 'At the present day we 
hear much of nerve-vibrations, of traces left in the brain, of 
permanent combinations of brain-cells, etc. 

No doubt there must be some physical machinery of memory, 
as there is of sensation and emotion. Physiology and path- 
ology have done something, and may do much more, towards 
tracing out the process in the brain, and explaining the mechani- 
cal part of the problem. But if all this were made as plain as 
the optical part of vision has been made by modern science, 
this would not go one step toward solving the real difficulty of 
the case, namely, how a trace in the brain can be transmuted 
into conscious memory, or h'ow permanent connections of 
brain-cells can appear in consciousness as associated sensations 
or "ideas." 

The problem is the same which confronts us in studying 
sensation. If we can no more tell how a nerve-thrill can oc- 
casion a state of consciousness than how the Djinn appeared 
when Aladdin rubbed his lamp (Huxley), we are equally un- 



Memory. i St- 

able, of course, to tell why a trace in the brain should occa- 
sion a representation of consciousness, and why a connection 
of such traces should cause ideas to adhere together, or why 
the decadence of such traces should cause disappearance of 
these representative states. The question of forgetting is no 
more difficult and no easier than that of remembering, and 
both are utterly inexplicable. 

Many of the facts, however, which tend to show the depend- 
ence of memory on the brain, and which are relied on to ex- 
plain memory by some writers, who are forgetful of the above 
considerations, are very curious and instructive. 

Disease affects the memory most strangely. In the delirium 
of fever, an ignorant woman once repeated long passages of 
Hebrew which she had heard many years before, and of which 
she had never understood a word. Many foreigners, long set- 
tled in America, having nearly forgotten their native tongue, 
have been known to return to its use on their death-bed. Dr. 
Scandella, ill with yellow fever, spoke on the first day French 
only, on the second English only, but on the day of his death 
only Italian, his native language. (Ribot, Diseases of the 
Memory.) 

Sir Henry Holland, when overcome with fatigue at the bot- 
tom of a mine in Germany, forgot the German language com- 
pletely; but it. was restored to him by rest and food. Sir 
Walter Scott, having composed his romance of Ivanhoe in ill- 
ness, could not afterwards recall a single incident or character 
in it. A person has been known to forget, after a violent ill- 
ness, all his acquired knowledge, which however returned to 
him instantaneously, some months afterward. After a severe 
injury to the head, the patient usually forgets not only the ac- 
cident itself but all events which occurred within several hours 
previous. A well educated man, after an attack of fever and 
ague, lost, it is said, all knowledge of the letter f. (Winsiow.) 



1 5 .- The Intellect. 

Somnambulists often remember during one fil of somnam- 
bulism what they did, or suffered, or where they hid articles, dur 
ing the previous attack, but cannot so remember in the inter- 
vening lime. 

it is mnto certain thai there are different kinds ot memory, 
ronvspoiuling to the different kinds of hhmu.i1 aptitude, or to 
peculiarities of sensation. Some persons, nearly idiotic, have 
had a wonderful memory for words, Some remember words 
best, some principles, some events, some numbers; some re- 
call sights best, some sounds 

Led by such analogies souk writers have maintained that 
there is no general faculty of memory, but thai each >f the 
senses has its own memory, Tins of eourse involves the sen- 
sational mow of the mental functions, But even on that view 
it would be more consistent to say that memory is a general 

function Of the nervous system. 

There can be no doubt that memory is as mueh dependent on 

the nerves and brain as other mental functions, but there is 
no reason to suppose that it is more so, and no satisfactory 
hypothesis has yet been constructed of the manner and extent 

of this physiological dependence, 

To the theory that memory is a function oi the immaterial 
p. ul o( the mind, the soul, it has been objected that it is in- 
conceivable that the soul, which is an undivided unit, existing 
in a single point o( space, can retain a \ast number ot" dis- 
tinct impressions, and be able to reproduce a corresponding 
number of states. But this is an argument ex ig r. We 

do not really know anything about the mode of existence ot 

the soul, whether it is an absolutely unitary being, or has 
parts and powers; whether it exists in one or many points 
ol spaee. or inhabits the whole brain. 1 ot e holds that the 
soul is a single element, and of simple quality, but yet may be 
present at more than one point o( spaee at the same time. 



Memory. 153 

The same argument may be retorted against the materialists. 
It is inconceivable that the almost infinite number of separate 
elements which go to mike up the series of our mental life, 
should be each one represented by a combination of brain- 
cells. Each spoken word, for instance, has several sounds, 
and each sound is produced by several impulses of the vocal 
organs. Each written word also has several letters, and the 
combinations between the sounds and the letters form another 
vast series. Yet many persons have at command as many as 
ten thousand words. Some can use fluently three or more 
languages, with command of three or four thousand words in 
each. Then, a prodigy of learning occasionally arises who knows 
twenty languages, is familiar with a hundred authors, can re- 
peat whole volumes, and knows a dozen sciences. Add to 
this the vast number of elements of knowledge comprised in 
our daily life, all our knowledge of places, persons, facts, the 
properties of matter, etc., and the number of separate things 
remembered will be seen to be vastly greater than the four 
hundred million nucleated cells, computed to exist in the 
brain. 

But each act of the brain must involve more than one cell, 
probably many thousands; they cannot leave their places to 
enter new situations, and if they could do so registration 
would thereby be lo.st. Thus even the physical difficulties of 
this scheme are insuperable, and we conclude that the fact of 
retention is inexplicable. 

The process of reproduction is capable of some further 
elucidation through the principle of association, under which 
head we shall recur to some phenomena of memory. 



154 rHE l\ m i ivr. 

11. ASSOCIATION, 

This principle accompanies or pervades nearly every activ- 
ity of the mind. We have already soon that different sensa- 
tions, occasioned by the same object, cohere together, so that 
any one will sui ill the rest, and occasion a co npiete pre- 

station of the object; also, that a sensation, being 01 
found b] experience to be a sign of distance or solidity, ever 

erwards suggests that perception, when it is repented. So, 
peculiar sensations ma] be associated v Iptions, 

as nausea with the sight of a ship, in the example cited above. 
Or, perceptions and emotions may be agglutinated, A dog is 

ed with tear at the S a whip. A timid person shud- 

ders at seeing a gun. A familiar tune may excite i Otions of 
joy or of sadness according to . le circumstances of the 
hearer. 

sor bain has described various modes of association, 

th remarkable minuteness and concreteness; showing, for 
example, how it applies to the use of language, to mechanical 
inventions, to the fine arts, to oratory, to poetry, to business, 
to handicrafts, etc This has been called a '-natural history 

the human mind." It is ingenious, instructive, and inter- 
est . hut it throws no I i or cause of assoc 
tion, 

operation of this principle can on 5 d in 

ion with re rese We cannot '.now whether 

sensations or pres is cohere together, until they are rep- 

resented together in memory or imagination. Hence the laws 
of association are always stated in a form which implies rep 
sentation. 

Theme Y. law of assoc ./.ion is this: — Ideas tend to 

be ch were formed together or n< 

one another in an] sense, that is. in time no- 



Association. 155 

tion, action, dependence, cause, or any relation in which they 
can coexist. The principle on which this depends is that the 
mind acts more readily in the same manner or a similar man- 
ner with any in which it has acted before. 

Sir XV. Hamilton, following St. Augustine and others, states 
the law as follows; — "Thoughts suggest each other which had 
previously constituted parts of the same entire or total act of 
cognition." He calls this a law of redintegration. But if 
literally interpreted this law does not include all the phe- 
nomena. Mere similarity is often the connecting link between 
ideas, and so is contrast; but these are not naturally or easily 
included under redintegration. 

Aristotle laid down three laws of association, namely, that 
ideas are associated by contiguity in time or space, by re- 
semblance, and by contrariety. Other schemes have been 
proposed. Hume gives resemblance, contiguity in time and 
place, and cause and effect. Dr. T. Brown introduced a two- 
fold classification of primary and secondary laws. For the 
first he adopted Aristotle's three laws; by the second he at- 
tempted to show why, when several ideas are in equally close 
association with the suggesting idea, according to the primary 
laws, only one is actually suggested. The secondary princi- 
ples are such as vivacity, frequency of repetition, recentness, 
the amount of interest or emotion involved, the natural pre- 
disposition of body or mind, of which he gives nine. But 
obviously such a list could be drawn out indefinitely, for any 
object may have a vast number of associations. For example, 
if gems are spoken of, we think of the diamond as the finest; 
if hardness is mentioned, we recall the diamond as the hardest 
of minerals; if combustibility, we recall the diamond, and Sir 
Isaac Newton's prediction of its combustibility from its re* 
fracting power; if refracting power, the same; if preciousness, 
we recall the diamond in that connection, and so on. It is 



156 The Intellect. 

not worth while to attempt to classify these. One example is 
as good as a thousand. 

We must beware of attributing efficiency to the laws or rules 
which have been discovered in association, or the principles on 
which it may be supposed to act.' Laws, rules, and principles 
of action in nature, are only abstractions from actual phenom- 
ena, not real beings which guide events. The error is one not 
infrequent in all science, and needs no special attention in 
psychology. A relation between two ideas is an abstraction, 
and can have no real efficiency. Ideas do not appear in con- 
sciousness together because there is a relation between them, 
but the mind, which formed them in the first place, recalls 
them, and for some unknown reason recalls those more easily 
which it first formed together, and this we call a relation be- 
tween the ideas. 

Association throws some light on the process of reproduc- 
tion. Obviously the simplest case of reproduction, would be 
one in which the whole series of our past ideas was recalled 
successively, being associated by the principle of contiguity in 
time, until that idea is reached which fits in with our present 
experience. 

Something like this has occurred to persons in extreme dan- 
ger, as while falling over a precipice, or when almost drowned. 
In such cases the sufferer sometimes sees, as it were, all the 
events of his life sweeping before him with inconceivable rapid- 
ity, so that he seems to live over again his whole life in a 
moment of time. In repeating a " piece " one is often obliged 
to begin again at the beginning, and can then go through 
without hesitation. Dr. Leyden, who was celebrated for his 
extraordinary memory, could repeat an act of Parliament, or 
any long document, after once reading it. " But when he 
wished to recall any particular point in anything which he had 
read, he could only do it by repeating to himself the whole " 
from the beginning to that place. (Abercrombie.) 



Association. 157 

Now, taking a case of this sort, as the simplest one, suppose 
the series of ideas to be represented byAbCdeFgHij 
K, etc., where the large letters stand for the more important 
ideas, and the small letters for the less important ones. Then 
the less important ideas, serving only the office, in that partic- 
ular series, of connecting together the more important ones, 
might be dropped out, during frequent repetitions of the series, 
and only the latter would remain, and would be associated 
together, so as to recall or suggest one another. We may sup- 
pose this process repeated until A is connected directly with Z, 
and, the next time Z comes into consciousness, this- new 
coherence being established, A will be suggested immediately. 

Or we may suppose that a new principle intervenes and 
supersedes that of contiguity in time, when the series is re- 
peated. For example, some of the ideas, A C F H, etc., may 
refer to the same subject. Then, on repetition of the series, 
the next step would be to drop out such steps as do not be- 
long to that subject, and the new series might be A C F H R 
Z, from which would result after a few more repetitions, the 
so-called, immediate coherence of A and Z. 

Something like this seems to occur when we try to think of 
a name and are at first unable to do so, because we cannot get 
hold of any short series of links between the present idea and 
the past one. In such cases what is needed is time for the 
machinery of reproduction to operate. Guided by experience 
we always say, " no matter, it will come to me," and remove 
our attention from the matter. Very often the automatic 
apparatus of suggestion does actually reproduce the name after 
a time, and, if the process is repeated with the same name 
after a few hours, it is much shorter, and finally the connection 
becomes "immediate." 

Another indication of the correctness of this analysis is the 

fact that some past events, having become established in con- 
11 



158 The Intellect. 

sciousness by frequent reference, owing to their importance 
for our life, are far more distinctly and exactly placed in our 
recollection than others. Hence we use them as reference- 
points for more quickly reproducing the latter. Thus we say, 
"I remember the storm of May 3, 1874, because it was the 
day before I was married." Old people commonly reinforce 
their statements in this way: " Brother Joshua came to visit us 
in the year 1865; because he was here when the news of Lin- 
coln's assassination arrived." In courts of justice those wit- 
nesses are always esteemed the best who remember events in 
their connection, recalling them by several threads, and giving 
parallel, associated events, by which to check the correctness 
of the principal ones.. Shakespeare understood this. Dame 
Quickly says, in Henry IV, " Thou didst swear to me upon a 
parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my dolphin chamber, at the round 
table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Whitsun-week, 
when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a sing- 
ing-man of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was 
washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my Lady thy 
wife." 

According to Mr. Herbert Spencer, memory, when it is 
*' immediate " or perfect, is automatic, like instinct, a part of 
organization; and only associative or suggestive memory really 
deserves the name. " Instinct may be regarded as a kind of 
organized memory, memory may be regarded as a kind of in- 
cipient instinct." (Psychology, I, 445.) "Memory necessa- 
rily comes into existence whenever automatic action is imper- 
fect." (448.) " As fast as those connections among psychical 
states which we form in memory grow by constant repetition 
automatic, they cease to be a part of memory." -(450.) 

If we correctly understand this distinction, it agrees with 
the 'view already given. The real difference in the two kinds 
of memory is in the length of the process, the number of in- 



Dreams. 159 

tervening suggestive links. When these are all dropped, as 
explained above, the connection "between psychical states" 
becomes immediate, that is, automatic. But, properly speak- 
ing, all associative suggestion is automatic or unconscious. 

Associative representation is the chief activity of the mind in 
dreams, somnambulism, hypnotism, and hallucination, making 
a transition to the subject of the imagination. In these, asso- 
ciation has its own way, unrestricted by either the will, or the 
actual facts of the external world. 

1. Dreams. 

In sleep the circulation of the blood in the brain is checked 
and almost suspended; hence there is not enough activity in 
the nerve-centers to produce motion in response to a stimulus 
either of the sense from without or of the mind from within. 
All the senses are partly dormant, and the sensations which are 
received become so feeble that they only recall past ideas. 
Since communication with the external world is suspended, the 
ordinary checks upon representation, furnished by the relations 
of space and time are wanting, and the various elements of 
our experience are combined in lawless, fantastic fashion. We 
have no sense of incongruity, in dreams, when we suddenly 
find ourselves in a distant city, nor when we spend an hour in 
crossing a street or ascending a stairway. 

That the will is dormant, and the mind wholly under the 
sway of association, is shown by the fact that dreams are some- 
times inspired by whispering in the ear of a sleeping person. 
A young military officer was once caused in this way to fight a 
duel in a dream. He thought that he was insulted, challenged, 
taken to the field, and that he killed his antagonist. But, be. 
ing told to fly, his efforts to do so awakened him. 

Nearly every one knows the terrible night-mare sensation of 
being unable, in a dream, to move, in order to escape from 
danger. This is undoubtedly a real experience, expressing the 



160 The Intellect. 

actual fact. The representative power is active, but the slug- 
gish brain cannot respond to it by moving the limbs. Homer 
compares the pursuit of Hector by Achilles around the walls 
of Troy, to such a dream. (Iliad, Bk. 22, Line 200.) 

It is a wonderful part of the phenomena of dreaming that 
we remember our dreams. This is largely an acquired power. 
Persons who tell their dreams, soon learn to remember them 
and to have them oftener. Those who never tell them seldom 
remember them. 

The cause of dreaming and the cause of the particular dream 
which occurs, may be quite distinct. Thus one may dream r 
perhaps, because he ate too much supper, or because he is 
lying on his back, or because the wind makes a gentle noise;* 
but he dreams of being at sea because he read about a ship 
the day before; or dreams about home because he is away from 
home. Dr. Gregory relates that once, having a bottle of hot 
water at his feet, he dreamed that he was walking on Mount 
Etna. A person who had a blister on his head dreamed that 
he was scalped by Indians. 

Since all outside distractions or checks are removed in 
dreams, if any one subject or train of thought has excited the 
mind while awake, to such an extent that the mind spontan- 
eously dwells upon it, excluding other suggestions, some very 
surprising results appear, though really no more inexplicable 
than any dream. Thus, Coleridge composed the poem of 
Kubla Khan in a dream. Dr. Franklin often unraveled politi- 
cal combinations in his dreams. Condorcet habitually solved 
mathematical problems in his sleep. This kind of dreaming 
runs into somnambulism; for the dreamer sometimes rises and 
writes down the problem or stanza in his sleep, though he does 
not remember, when he awakes, that he has done so. 

This phenomenon has been called "unconscious cerebration" 
(Carpenter), " unconscious mental modification " (Hamilton), 



Somnambulism. 161 

"insensible perception" (Leibnitz), etc. Various theories of 
brain-action have been devised to explain it. Great numbers 
of wonderful examples have been accumulated, and may be 
found in easily accessible books. But there can be no proof 
that this kind of mental action is unconscious, at the time; but 
only that it is not remembered. 

There is no necessity for assuming any new principle, other 
than associative suggestion, in connection with dreaming or 
somnambulism. The facts all come under these. In some 
cases a dream of this kind is forgotten, while the results remain 
in the mind, and a problem can be solved or a thought expressed 
which could not be before. But this does not show that the 
activity of the mind was unconscious at the time. 

Some writers have failed to distinguish between this phe- 
nomenon and ordinary associative recollection, and have con- 
fused together the examples of both. " Unconscious cerebra- 
tion" is only mysterious and inexplicable in fact, just as all 
association, and indeed all mental action is so. On dreaming, 
in general, see also Sully, Illusions, Chapter 7. 

2. Somnambulism. 

Somnambulism is an acted dream. In this the motor cen- 
ters and nerves have sufficient circulation to support activity, 
while some of the senses are still dormant. Representation 
goes on and is acted out, and the patient's consciousness is the 
same as in a dream. 

In this state many strange occurrences take place, due to 
concentration of the mind on one topic. Those senses which 
are not dormant are in a state of exalted activity, and the pa- 
tient performs so many actions, guided by touch alone, or 
touch and hearing, with eyes firmly fixed and sightless, that 
observers feel certain he can see through a wall, or see with the 
back of his head or with his hand. 



1 62 The Intellect. 

No extravagant supposition of new senses, or strange spirit- 
ual powers is necessary. The somnambulist is like a blind 
person, who learns more by touch than other people do be- 
cause he concentrates his attention upon it. 

3. Hypnotism. 

The. state called somnambulism can be induced artificially, 
and is then called hypnotism, or mesmeric sleep. In this state 
the phenomena of sleep and somnambulism are curiously 
blended. The will being entirely dormant, the patient's ac- 
tions are a dream suggested by the operator, like the duel de- 
scribed above. He sees flames of fire issuing from a magnet, 
sees them where the operator says there is a magnet, even if 
none be really there. His thoughts and actions are at the 
mercy of associative suggestion. 

This state may even be voluntarily assumed by some persons. 
It has been known in many countries and ages in the form of 
religious trance or extasy. The spiritualistic trance-speaker, if 
not an imposter, is in this state. He speaks much more flu- 
ently than he could in his natural condition, because his at- 
tention is concentrated on his language, and all distractions 
are excluded. But he says nothing new, nothing which he did 
not know before, and nothing of any importance. Persons in 
this state, however, sometimes recall things which they had for- 
gotten and could not recall in their normal condition. Many 
of these phenomena are best discussed in connection with the 
subject of the Will. 

4. Hallucination. 

Hallucination is a waking dream. Owing to some disorder 
of the brain, caused by disease or the action of opium, alco- 
hol, haschish, etc., the ideas called up by association; as in 
dreams, excite the nerves and centers of vision, and produce 
subjective or reflex sensations of sight. Nearly all patients in 
violent fever suffer in this way. 



Imagination. 163 

The case of Brutus has been mentioned. The case of 
Nicolai, a bookseller of Berlin, is famous and typical. But the 
phenomena are too common and too slight in psychological 
importance to justify further attention here. 

Representation here goes on, and excites a reflex activity of 
the visual centers, as somnambulism of the motor centers. 
For further details and examples, see Sully on Illusions. 

III. IMAGINATION. 

By all these abnormal phenomena of association the trans- 
ition is made to the imagination, which is association, guided 
by the will and watched by consciousness, and thus having 
the appearance of a creative power. Two observations were 
long ago made which confirm this explanation. (1) Imagina- 
tion produces nothing absolutely new, but only combines ob- 
jects in new ways, or. parts of objects to make up new wholes, 
or changes the properties of objects, or alters the degree or 
proportion of their different qualities. (2) Imagination is 
confined to material things, objects of sense. This last is 
only true of the ordinary, established use of the term imagi- 
nation. It is often used now in a figurative, extended sense, 
as we shall see. 

In imagination the wider excursions of the suggestive power 
are restrained by the will, the relations of space and time are 
not lost sight of, because the senses are not dormant, and all 
is normal. As already said, imagination, in its usual meaning, 
is the power of representing objects. To recall a face so that 
you can paint it, is an act of imagination in the ordinary sense. 
To form from this face a different one, by heightening the ex- 
pression, improving some features, adding beauty or any pe- 
culiar character, is called an act of creative imagination, and 
the face thus produced is called an ideal face. 

The different activities of the imagination have often 
been distinguished and classified. Sir W. Hamilton limits 



164 The Intellect. 

the word to its literal meaning, and says that the terms 
productive and creative are very improperly applied to the 
imagination. President Porter distinguishes three offices of 
the imagination, (1) the combining and arranging office, (2) 
the idealizing office, (3) the office of forming standards of action. 
But he adds four special applications of the imagination, — 
the poetic, the philosophic, the ethical, and the religious. 
And it must be noticed that he treats of the phantasy as a 
separate division of the representative power, including some 
things which most writers place under imagination. 

We propose the following division of the field of activity of 
the imagination into five parts. (1) Imagination in the com- 
mon, literal meaning. (2) Reverie. (3) Poetic or artistic 
imagination. (4) Mechanical or scientific. (5) Ethical or 
moral. In every one of these the imagination produces the 
ideal by combining the real. It has but one method. 

1. Ordinary imagination is the representation of objects 
when they are out of actual sight, so that they appear before 
the mind's eye just as they really are. The difference between 
this and the activities of associative representation noticed 
above, dreaming, hypnotism, etc., is that they are all abnormal, 
some part of the mental force being dormant, while this is per- 
fectly normal and regular. 

This view is confirmed by the following definitions. " The 
image making power. The power to create or reproduce an 
object of sense previously perceived." (The Webster Die.) 
" The faculty of representation by which the mind keeps be- 
fore it an image of visible forms." (Calderwood.) " Mental 
representation of the absent object, 'passive imagination.'" 
(Krauth.) " Imagination as reproductive, stores the mind 
with ideal images, constructed through the medium of atten- 
tion and memoiy, out of our immediate perceptions." (Mor- 
ell.) Shakespeare compares it with the poet's pen. 



Imagination. 165 

'* . . . as imagination bodies forth 
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name." 

Simple imagination has decided limitations, (a) It is con- 
fined to things actually seen or known, either directly or 
through descriptions and pictures. A person born on the 
prairie, who has never seen a mountain, cannot imagine one. 
One who has never been at sea cannot picture to himself the 
raging deep. The dweller in the tropics cannot imagine the 
arctic ice. But all can body forth before the mind, to some 
extent, the descriptions they have heard and the pictures they 
have seen. 

(b) It is limited to natural objects and qualities. It cannot 
produce a new color, present an object out of space, an event 
out of time, or a pure unembodied spirit. But it can com- 
bine arbitrarily all natural forms and qualities; it can create 
centaurs, the heads of men on the bodies of horses; or mer- 
maids, part woman, part fish; or angels, beautiful women with 
wings; mice as large as elephants; diamonds as large as houses; 
a nation of pigmies, or of giants, or of fairies; a Titania, a 
Caliban, a Satan, all the heroes of romance. 

Imagination sometimes interferes with the correctness of 
narrative, making it untruthful by interpolating objects trans- 
planted from other senses or evoked by association. Old per- 
sons sometimes relate having seen events which occurred be- 
fore they were born, the descriptions heard in childhood being 
reproduced by the imagination as actual experiences. 

2. Reverie is a voluntary, waking, dream. The subject of it 
gives himself up to the power of association, and imagines him- 
self passing through a series of events or experiences of va- 
rious kinds. This power may be cultivated by practice until 
reverie becomes as capricious, as absorbing, as apparently 
real as a dream. It may become a confirmed habit, a luxury, 



1 66 The Intellect. 

a dissipation. It produces new experiences by combining 

events known or heard of, in a series, making personages, 

themselves the creation of a .similar process, pass through 

pleasing or diverting scenes, like a stage-play. The poet and 

the novelist can use this half-conscious play of associative 

representation to weave their tales, as the kaleidoscope is used 

by designers of new patterns for carpets and wall-papers. 

3. In the poetic or artistic imagination we approach more 

nearly what is called the creative power of this faculty. 

Shakespeare says, 

" The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, 
Are of imagination all compact." 

Here the ideal element begins to be felt. It is not easy to de- 
fine the ideal. Some have even denied its existence, and held 
that the imagination only combines the disjecta jnembra of ex- 
perience. But the testimony of the most elevated, noblest 
minds is very general to the existence, value, and force of an 
ideal element. 

We do not indeed affirm that the ideal is a product solely of 
the imagination, nor would we say that it is formed or con- 
structed by any faculty. It is a way of viewing certain subjects, 
a method of thought and a style of feeling, a product of the 
emotional and reasoning powers, combined with the imagina- 
tion. 

The painter, the sculptor, the poet, the orator, have lofty 
views of the value of their respective arts, deep feelings ex- 
cited by great excellence, strong desires to attain what is 
worthy, a thorough conviction that great success is attainable 
in these arts. Now a wide knowledge of art and literature, 
gained under the impulse of such feelings and convictions as 
these, not merely furnishes the imagination with a stock of ma- 
terials, and supplies the mind with the loftiest standards of 
comparison for the artist's own work, but impresses him with 



Imagination. 167 

a belief in the nobility of true excellence, and with a passion 
for success. Under these influences he is never satisfied with 
what he has done, always feels that he or some one else can 
do better, and never gives up striving for a higher success. 

This mode of thinking and feeling is called a love of the 
ideal, a worship of the ideal, a service of the ideal, the forma- 
tion of ideals; not because the imagination forms a definite 
standard of excellence, for if definite it would not be ideal; 
but because all the concrete examples which furnish its stock 
in trade are seen to be imperfect and surpassable. Thus the 
popular phrase is perfectly justifiable, that we judge ideally, or 
by an ideal standard; but it is not strictly accurate to say that 
the imagination constructs such a standard. 

Under this head may be placed another remarkable com- 
bination of the representative and reasoning powers, the so- 
called mathematical imagination. A line without breadth and 
perfectly straight, a surface without thickness and perfectly 
plane, may be said to be ideals, which can never be realized in 
fact, but which the imagination supplies to every geomet- 
rical construction. So number is never really abstract, but 
always concrete, and when we speak of three, or ten, alone, we 
exercise an abstracting imagination. 

The power to isolate a relation of space or of number, re- 
move it from the concrete, and make this abstraction seem 
real to uS, may well be called imagination, and requires culture 
in this peculiar line to make it available, as does the artist's 
feeling of the ideal. 

The solution of problems in or by mathematics often comes 
under the next head, of the scientific imagination. 

4. The scientific imagination is used in the framing of hy- 
potheses. The scientific investigator, seeking the explanation 
of a phenomenon, frames a supposition; " What if it be thus 
and so ? ,; All his knowledge of natural laws, and all possible 



1 68 The Intellect. 

suppositions which seem to him reasonable, as to new laws of 
nature, form the material out of which his imagination forms a 
hypothesis. He then tests this by experiment, calculation, 
any means in his power. If the result is unfavorable, the proc- 
ess has probably suggested a new supposition, which can be 
tried in like manner. Thus Newton formed the hypothesis 
that the force which binds the moon to the earth, and the 
earth to the sun, is the same as that which attracts bodies on 
the surface of the earth, giving them weight. His calculations 
failed to confirm the supposition. He calculated that the 
moon would be deflected fifteen feet in a minute, while it is 
really deflected but thirteen. He laid his calculations aside. 
Thirteen years afterwards Picard measured an arc of a merid- 
ian, and found a new value for the earth's diameter. Newton 
then went over his calculations again, with this new value in- 
serted, and found them correct. The result confirmed his 
theory and made him famous. (Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, 
I, in.) 

"Without an active imagination, philosophical invention 
and discovery are impossible." (Porter, Hum. Intel., 369.) 
Prof. J. Tyndall's essay on the Scientific Uses of the Imagina- 
tion is valuable in this connection. 

Every great mechanical invention is the result of a similar 
process; only, when the first guess proves to be right, it seems 
an inspiration, though really the result of long mechanical 
practice or study, supplying the imagination with a fund of 
materials. But in fact every great mechanical triumph has 
been the outcome of a vast number of hypotheses constructed 
in iron and wood, often, laid aside and altered, perfected by 
many steps. The power-loom, the spinning-machine, the 
locomotive, the sewing-machine, the reaper, the thresher, the 
chronometer, the blast-furnace, the iron ship, — have each been 
developed by successive efforts of the scientific or mechanical 
imagination. 



Imagination. 169 

5. The ethical and religious imagination. Some of the re- 
marks made upon the artistic imagination are applicable here. 
The literary artist may produce an ideal character, just as the 
painter produces an ideal face, by improving, heightening, 
strengthening, in a word idealizing, an actual one. But he 
cannot do this unless he has an "ideal standard" already in 
his mind; but as in art, so here, this does not mean a definite, 
detailed standard, but an aspiration, a love of moral beauty. 
The details of the creation will be supplied by the imagination 
out of the experience, habits, education, observation, etc., of 
the author, in more or less accordance with public opinion and 
the tastes of the time. 

Moral ideals and rules, however, are difficult to carry in the 
mind and apply correctly to all actions, in the various and 
complicated circumstances of life. They are best presented, 
therefore, concretely, in the person of some one who inspires 
our admiration, and whom we can imitate. Nearly all relig- 
ions have their great heroes or founders, whom the people are 
bidden to imitate. The Christian religion has this great ad- 
vantage, that it satisfies this longing of the human heart far 
better than any other religion, and presents in the person of 
Christ an ideal which abounds in divine perfections, and yet is 
not perfect in such a way as to repel and discourage the be- 
liever, but attracts him with a deep sympathy and arouses him 
to the best thoughts, feelings, and actions. 

The " creative imagination " may find ample play in apply- 
ing the teachings of Christ and his example to all the circum- 
stances of modern life, answering the questions; — What would 
He command if He were here? What would He do if He 
were in my place? 

The imagination has no application to spiritual beings. It 
is limited to the analogies of our present life. Our attempts to 
imagine pure, unembodied spiritual beings, only result in 



170 The Intellect. 

human forms made of thin, transparent matter. Still less can 
we imagine the Infinite Spirit, the Divine Being. We may 
form concepts of power, wisdom, and goodness, perhaps of in- 
finity. We may attempt to join all these together. But for us 
to imagine a Being of infinite wisdom, power, and goodness, 
would be for the finite to represent, to image forth, the in- 
finite. We believe that such a Being exists, but that does not 
imply that we can image to ourselves his mode of existence. 

The words "conception" and "conceive" are sometimes 
used in connection with the imagination. This may be allow- 
able in popular language or conversational discourse, but in 
philosophical language these terms have long been applied in 
the best usage, to the reasoning power, the faculty of thought- 
knowledge, of abstractions, and should not now be changed. 
Dugald Stewart is the only philosopher of note who has used 
conception in the sense of imagination. 

The critics of Mr. Herbert Spencer affirm that he neglects 
this distinction, and uses the term " conceive " in the sense of 
imagine. " To think a thing as possible," he says, " is the 
same as to imagine it." (Psychology, n, 179.) This ob- 
viously injures the cogency of his celebrated antinomy of the 
reason, his doctrine that anything must necessarily be true if 
we cannot "conceive" the opposite; a doctrine which, how- 
ever, we should reject on other grounds. 



PART III. 

THE REASONING POWER. 



The reasoning power is also called the Understanding by 
Coleridge, Hickok, and many others; the Elaborative Faculty, 
by Hamilton; Discursive Reason, by Whewell; Dianoetic Fac- 
ulty, by Aristotle; etc. The correct term should be Reason 
corresponding to "reasoning," which is used to express what 
the faculty does. But "reason " has been used by so many 
writers since Coleridge, to define a supposed faculty of regula- 
tion which produces a priori concepts or intuitive ideas, that 
we cannot hope to restore its proper use. We keep as near it 
as possible in the term " reasoning power." 

The functions of the reasoning power may be divided into 
judgment, abstraction, generalization, and reasoning proper. A 
product of the Judgment, when actually expressed, is called a 
judgment, and the phrase in which it is expressed is called a 
proposition. A product of abstraction is called a concept or 
notion. A product of generalization is a class. Reasoning 
proper is of three kinds, analogy, induction," and deduction. 
The judgment is by some called the faculty of comparison, and 
considered a separate division, co-ordinate with the understand- 
ing and the reason. (Kant.) 

One cause of the confusion of nomenclature on this sub- 
ject, is the influence of Locke's Essay. "This work is quite 
as much a treatise on logic and metaphysics as on psychology. 
It scarcely professes to give a complete and systematic view of 
the powers of the soul, but is chiefly occupied with the analy- 



172 . The Intellect. 

sis of ideas. . . . Locke gave a direction to all subse- 
quent writers, even to those who differ from him most materi- 
ally. Even Reid, in treating of the higher powers, groups 
them all under Judgment, which he treats quite as much from 
a logical as from a psychological starting-point." (Porter, Hu- 
man Intellect, 381.) 

JUDGMENT. 

We place Judgment first because it is concerned in all the 
activities of the intellect. In logic the phrase, an act of judg- 
ment, is used in a more restricted sense, and means the com- 
paring of two notions which are already formed. For exam- 
ple, when I say, "grass is green," the concepts "grass" and 
"green" are both furnished, and the logical judgment only 
unites them in a judgment, and the phrase expressing this is 
called a proposition. 

But in psychological usage, the judgment is active also in 
perception. I carinot perceive the grass as green without dis- 
tinguishing green from other colors. Discrimination, as we 
have seen, is the very basis of knowledge. A judgment is then, 
psychologically, an act of the mind, which applies the catego- 
ries of identity and similarity. For example, suppose I see a 
distant light in the midst of darkness; I perceive it as some- 
thing different from the darkness. If it continues for a time, I 
judge it to be the same, identical, not different. If it changes 
to a red light, I judge it to be qualitatively different, not iden- 
tical, but similar. If another light of the same color appears, 
I judge the two to be not identical, but different, — separately 
existent, but alike in one thing, color. 

All knowledge implies judgment; we can not know any ob- 
ject except in some relation. "The secondary, comparative, 
and logical judgments are all founded on those which are pri- 
mary, natural, and psychological." (Porter, op. cit., 432.) 

When we see a red light, as above, if we know by previous 



Judgment. 173 

experience that the name of this peculiarity is " red," we apply 
that knowledge at once, and form the proposition, expressed or 
implied, "this light is red." If we have never .learned the 
name "red," we can only say, "it is like the other light, like 
the one I saw last night," and begin the process of forming 
concepts, classifying, and making names. But if some one 
tells us, " the name of that color is red," the process is abridged; 
we attach the name to the concept, and have it ready in the 
memory for the next similar occasion. 

Ordinarily, we learn the name when we learn the object, and 
the classifying judgment is made for us. When this is not the 
case a tentative process of naming and classification necessarily 
begins. When Captain Cook landed some goats on an island 
of the Pacific, the natives called them horned hogs; on a sim- 
ilar occasion horses have been called large dogs; the hog and 
the dog being the only beasts known to them, and the cloven 
feet of the former classing them with goats. The Romans at 
first called the elephant bos lucanus, lucanian ox, having first 
seen them in Lucania. Children often classify in the same 
imperfect way, calling a cow's horns handles, the gums the fat 
of the teeth, etc. 

In perception we also distinguish the object as different from 
self, which involves a knowledge of self as different from the 
object, and is a true act of judgment. 

Judgment, therefore, can hardly be called a separate faculty 

or mental power; or at least the fact should be noticed that it 

does not isolate itself from other activities. We have already 

remarked upon the inseparable connection of the various 

powers of the mind. Each one involves others, and perhaps, 

if our knowledge were wider and deeper, we might see that 

each involves and depends upon all the others. It would 

hence be far better to say, " the mind in perception acts under 

the categories of identity and similarity, under the condition 
12 



174 The Intellect. 

of consciousness, under the form of space, under the limita- 
tions of the senses," than to say — "the mind has a faculty of 
judgment, another of consciousness, etc., and all together make 
up the power of knowledge." But convenience and common 
usage compel us to adhere to the ordinary names. 

The further discussion of the judgment and its operations 
belongs to the science of logic. We shall discuss briefly the 
concept, and the operations of generalization and reasoning, 
so far only as they seem to require mention as psychological 
processes. Their complete treatment is far more in keeping 
with the subject of logic. The logical text-book of President 
McCosh is especially noteworthy and valuable for its full anc 
clear treatment of the concept. 

THE CONCEPT. 

The concept is, a product of abstraction and generalization. 
Let us take a simple example, a red apple. We can, by an act 
of " analytic attention," called abstraction, think of the quality 
or attribute "red," apart from the other attributes which make 
up the mental object, apple. Lotze uses the instance of a tree, 
which we see at one time covered with green leaves, and at 
another after it mas lost its leaves, and so find that we can sep- 
arate the attribute, green, from the object tree. (Dictate, 
Logik, §20.) To the same effect Mr. Herbert Spencer says 
that we have the "power of recognizing attributes as distin- 
guished from the objects possessing them, ... a power 
to recognize attributes in themselves, apart from particular 
bodies." (Psychology, I, 344-) 

This process is called abstraction. The quality or attribute 
of redness^ for example, when we separate it in thought from 
the being of a single object, is called an abstractum. This 
does not imply that We can imagine the quality really to exist 
by itself, apart from any substance to which it belongs, or that 
we can imagine an apple or a tree without any color. But, 



The Concept. 175 

suppose there are several red apples, we can compare them, by 
an act of judgment, and know that they agree in this respect, 
know that they all have the same attribute of "red," that is, 
they all have a like power of occasioning the sensation called 
red. 

This quality, when viewed as the common property of all 
the members of a class which makes them to be a class, is 
called a concept. The concept is therefore a " general," a 
" universal." Now, in what sense this universal really exists, 
and what its nature is, has been the object of dispute among 
philosophers and logicians for many centuries. It is not a 
part of our present plan to give a history of these disputes. 

But we affirm that the concept is a mental product, resem- 
bling in this respect a percept, or a representation. " The con- 
cept is a purely relative object of knowledge. ... As 
a mental product and a mental object, it is purely relative, 
being formed by the mind and understood by the mind as in- 
differently common to single objects as so to speak, held 
ever ready by the mind to be affirmed of, and restored to, the 
single object to which it relates." (Porter, Human Intellect, 
392. See also Bowne's Metaphysics, 30.) 

Professor Jevons defines concept as; — "That which is con- 
ceived; -the result of the act of conception; nearly synony- 
mous with general notion, idea, thought." Mr. Spencer's re- 
marks, quoted above, are of the same tenor. Lotze compares 
mere sensations to round bodies out of which no building can 
be reared; as only prism-shaped bodies can be formed into a 
wall, so sensations must be formed into classes, concepts, 
mental products, before we can think with them. (Dictate, 
Logik, §6.) 

We may remark here that the* logical term " notion," and 
the German " begriff" are generally used in a wider meaning 
than that given for " concept." 



176 The Intellect. 

Concepts may be classified in various ways. We mention 
only the division into simple and complex concepts. Those 
called simple contain but a single attribute, as redness, sour- 
ness. Those called complex comprehend many attributes, 
as man, horse. So we may rise from one order of abstrac- 
tion to another, until we reach such complex objects of thought 
as nation, civilization, religion, education, nature. 

The term classification is used oftener in a higher and 
wider meaning, of the systematic arrangement of natural ob- 
. jects under higher and lower genera. This operation depends 
on analysis and comparison. An object is presented to the 
mind in perception as a complex of properties, parts, and re- 
lations. It is impossible to compare two objects without sep- 
arating in thought these properties and relations. We may 
then, on comparison, form a class of those objects which agree 
in every observable attribute. Such a class would be in most 
cases very small. Or, we may form a class of all those ob- 
jects which agree in only one given attribute, and such a class 
would usually be very large. 

This introduces the distinction between the comprehension 
and the extension of concepts. The former denotes the num- 
ber of attributes in which the objects agree, the latter the 
number of individual objects which belong to the class. The 
two are therefore always in inverse ratio; for, the slighter the 
resemblance the larger the class, and the more exact the resem- 
blance the smaller the class. 

We must now briefly describe the three great schools of 
opinion on this point'. We quote the graphic description of 
Professor Bain. " It was believed by a certain school of phi- 
losophers, deriving from Plato, that there exists, in the universe 
of being, a circle in general, or. circular form without substance, 
size, or color; that in like manner, there are archetypal forms • 
of man, of just, of good, etc. After a severe controversy which 



The Concept. 177 

raged in the scholastic period, this view was abandoned." 

This was the view called realism, and its catchword was, 
universalia ante rem. 

" Another mode of regarding the fact of community in di- 
versity, is to suppose that the mind can represent to itself, in 
a notion, the points of agreement by themselves, and can leave 
entirely out of sight the points of difference. This is con- 
ceptualism." The catchword of this theory is, universalia 
in re. 

Professor Bain then goes on to describe his own view, 
which is nominalism and the catchword of which is, uni- 
versalia post rem. "The final result of the generalizing proc- 
ess is the abstract name. Such names as motion, weight, 
breadth, whiteness, melody, roughness, polarity, wisdom, jus- 
tice, beauty, are called abstract names, as signifying qualities or 
attributes without reference to the things that possess the 
qualities. They seem to separate the points of community of 
agreeing objects themselves, an operation impossible in fact, 
and even in thought, but supposed by a kind of fiction to be 
possible." (Bain, Logic, 52.) 

We grant that it is impossible so to separate the qualities of 
objects in fact, and even in imagination, but deny that it is 
therefore impossible in thought. Yet the quality, when thus 
thought separately from the object, is not a concept, but only 
an abstract; it becomes a universal, a concept, when thought 
as the common quality of several objects, that which makes 
them a class. 

" It is said," says Lotze, " that the unlike parts of our ideas 
destroy one another, and the similar parts are simply left be- 
hind, and form the universal. But the simple ideas are not 
lost; they remain, alongside of the universals, which are added 
as a new product. Moreover, the general concept is not some- 
thing which can be represented, pictured, like the examples 



178 The Intellect. 

from which it is derived. Thus, ' color in general ' cannot be 
represented in the mind. Neither can ' animal in general.' 

" Such general concepts are not, then, products of a coali- 
tion of many single ideas, for then they would have the same 
character [be of the same order] with their components. The" 
names we give them, ' color ' for example, merely summon up 
a series of single impressions, but with the added thought that 
we mean, not them, but that in them which is common, 
though it can never be separated from them as a distinct repre- 
sentation." (Lotze, Dictate, Psychologie, §23.) 

Lotze is usually called a nominalist; but the above passage 
may fairly be understood as agreeing with the quotations from 
President Porter, and with our own view. 

It is plain, however, that Bain and Mill were required by 
consistency to be extreme nominalists. For, on their view of 
the mind, universals must be formed by the automatic action of 
sensations. Sensations that are more frequently repeated 
make a deeper impression on the brain, so that when a series 
of objects occasion sensations, those which are alike are 
strengthened, while those which are unlike are crowded out 
and forgotten. Of course on such a theory there is no mental 
product, no elaboration by the active power of the mind in 
perception, and hence none in conception. .Conception is re- 
duced to imagination, the power of imaging forth real objects. 

But those who hold that the mind is active, interpreting and 
combining sensations, and forming a mental product by means 
of them, a percept, — should have no difficulty in believing 
that the mind can superinduce upon this a still higher stage of 
mental products, the concept. 

It is admitted that names are essential to the effective use of 
concepts, perhaps even to the formation of all but the more 
simple ones. Still analysis and classification of objects can 
undoubtedly go on to some extent without language. The 



The Concept. 179 

lower animals can form classes of concrete objects, can clas- 
sify men as different from other animals, sweet grasses as dif- 
ferent from bitter herbs, etc., but they cannot form concepts 
of the higher degrees, or true abstracta. Such concepts as 
justice, truth, beauty, are unknown to them, for these require 
language to deal with thehi and make them useful, as well as a 
higher abstractive power of thought to make them possible. 

The general name is really a different product, as is ad- 
mitted by Bain himself. "The abstract name is not absolutely 
required for ordinary speech, nor indeed for science. 
Justice expresses the same thing as just actions. . . . The 
term signifies just actions in so far as just, or viewed solely 
with reference to their being just." (Logic, 53.) 

But this would be the forming of a concept as a mental 
product, not a mere name, and w T ould inevitably become con- 
ceptualism. " What the mind considers is not the name but 
the meaning or import of the name." (Porter, Human In- 
tellect, 41 6. V 

The conceptualist, in like manner sometimes glides into the 
territory of the realist, by treating concepts as existing by them- 
selves, apart from the objects from which they are derived, for- 
getting that they are but mental products, symbols. President 
McCosh says: " Conceptualism has often taken a wrong form. 
It does so when it regards the conception combining the objects 
as an idea in the sense of image. This was the mistake of 
Locke. . . . But if it avoids these mistakes and over- 
sights, which are not parts of the doctrine properly understood, 
conceptualism is the true theory. For in general notions, 
[concepts] the 'essential element is the grouping by the mind 
of objects by common properties, and putting in the group all 
objects possessing the properties." (Logic 92.) 

Dr. McCosh adds the following striking statement of the 



i8o The Intellect. 

real truth contained in each of these theories, realism, con- 

ceptualism, and nominalism. "There are universalia ante rem 

in the Divine Mind. There are tmiversalia in re in natural 

classes. There are universalia post rem in human concepts 

and terms." 

REASONING PROPER. 

Reasoning may be called mediate judgment, or the com- 
parison of simple judgments. For example, returning to our 
red apples, if we judge concerning them that they are red, or 
round, or small, or that they agree or disagree in any way, this 
is an immediate or simple judgment. If we say, "red apples 
are good, therefore these apples are good," this is a mediate 
judgment, that is, one with a middle term, a comparison of 
judgments. 

The two chief forms" of reasoning are Deduction and Induc- 
tion. In the first, as in the example given above, the middle 
or general term is supplied, with which the first simple judg- 
ment is to be compared. In the second the general term is to 
be found. Thus, if I eat a good many red apples and find 
them all good, I may infer that all red apples are good, and 
this would be induction. 

A complete deductive argument is called a syllogism. The 
following is an example of the simplest form of syllogism. All 
men are mortal; the king is a man; therefore the king is mor- 
tal. Three judgments are involved; the one we have placed 
first is called the major premise, the second the minor premise, 
the third the conclusion. The middle term (here man) ap- 
pears in both premises. The minor term (here king) appears 
in the conclusion and in one premise. The major term (here 
mortal) appears in the conclusion and in one premise. With- 
out a middle term, or with two middle terms there can 
obviously be no ^ r alid conclusion. 

There are many forms of syllogism, but they can all be re- 



Reasoning Proper. 181 

duced to this simple form or its corresponding negative, as is 
shown in any text-book of logic. 

Now what is the principle on which this kind of reasoning 
depends ? Why are we obliged to admit the conclusion when 
we have admitted that the premises are correct and that the 
process is regular. Take the simple form, A is equal to B, B 
is equal to C, therefore A=C. a Here the principle of reasoning 
evidently is, things which are equal to the same thing are equal 
to one another. But this form, though it resembles a syllo- 
gism is not one in reality, for all its terms have exactly the same 
extent, and there is no middle term. But its resemblance may 
aid us in seeing what kind of a principle or axiom is to be 
sought. 

Strange as it appears, this axiom has been the subject of 
much dispute. The best known form of the axiom is Aristotle's 
dictwn de om/ni et nullo, which is: " Whatever is true of a class 
is true also of whatever comes under the class." 

Sir W. Hamilton has endeavored to reduce the relation to 
be expressed to one of extent, and gives the axiom as follows: 
"Whatever is part of a part, is part of its containing whole." 
This, though useful for advancing Hamilton's peculiar theories, 
does not differ, so far as our purpose is concerned, from that 
of Aristotle. 

J. Stuart Mill, at the opposite extreme, reduces the relation 
to one of content, and gives the axiom thus: " Whatever 
possesses any mark possesses that which it is a mark of" He 
says that a middle term may be dispensed with, and that we 
really reason from particular to particular, without using any 
general. This, however, does not settle the question; every 
one knows that we actually reason in that way, but the ques- 
tion is, Is not the middle term implied when it is not expressed? 
Mr. Mill would say "The king is a man, and therefore mortal. 
I know that he is mortal immediately, since he belongs to the 
human race." 



182 The Intellect. 

But evidently the middle term is implied, and the ordinary 
syllogism is only the full expression of the implication. Prof. 
Bain says: "We have to prove that some object is mortal, not 
expressly named a man, but designated by some other title, as 
'king.' We cannot say, 'men are mortal,' therefore 'kings are 
mortal;' such an inference can be made only through an in- 
termediate assertion, 'kings are men.'" (Logic, 156.) 

Mr. Herbert Spencer denies that any axiom which it is pos- 
sible to frame can be " capable of expressing the ratiocinative 
act." He says: " Reasoning is the indirect establishment of a 
definite relation between two things. . . Every ratiocin- 

ative act is the indirect establishment of a definite relation 
between two things, by the process of establishing a definite 
relation between two definite relations." " Reasoning presup- 
poses classification, and classification presupposes reasoning. 
. . . . They are the different sides of the same thing, the 
necessary complements of each other." (Psychology, II, 115, 
118.) 

This implies, evidently, the "relation-view of propositions," 
which is, "that every proposition really asserts the manner in 
which two ' nameble things ' are related to each other." Both 
terms, that is, of the proposition, are subjects. Mr. Sidgwick 
says that this theory was suggested by Mill and really appears 
in parts of his logic, though not avowed by him. (Fallacies 

53-) 

The theory seems to be merely an attempt to eliminate 
abstraction and the concept, like that of Bain and Mill men- 
tioned above, but pushed a little further. It is a result of 
nominalism, an attempt to use real things in argument, with- 
out mental products. The full discussion of it belongs to 
logic. We subjoin a few authorities. 

" Svllogism in the strictest sense is inference from the gen- 
era! to the particular or individual, and in all its forms, infer- 



Deduction. 183 

ence proceeds from the general." (Ueberweg's Logic, transla- 
tion* 333-) . 

" A syllogism is a combination of two judgments, necessitat- 
ing a third judgment as a consequence of their mutual relation." 
(ManselO 

" A syllogism is an enunciation in which, certain assertions 
being made, by their being true it follows necessarily that 
another assertion, different from the first, is true also." (Aris- 
totle.) 

The general term is, then, necessary to the syllogism, which 
is the test-form to which all forms of deductive reasoning can 
be reduced. 

It is sometimes objected that the conclusion of the syllogism 
does not advance beyond the premises, but is really affirmed 
in them. Indeed it is a formal canon of books of logic that 
the conclusion must contain nothing which is not already in- 
cluded in the premises. This is often called a petitio principii 
and said to destroy the value of this kind of argument. Its 
value is certainly reduced by this consideration below the 
claims of many logicians, but not by any means destroyed. 

"It does not follow that the deductive process is therefore 
superfluous, inasmuch as it may be necessary to develop, or draw 
out that which is already implied or folded up in the premises." 
(Whately, Logic.) 

" Deductive inference may be described as a process of in- 
terpretation. . . . The deductive inference that the pope 
is mortal, presupposes an examination of the pope's personality. 
If this resembles the usual type of humanity, we identify him 
with the subject 'men' in our general proposition." (Bain, 
Logic, 211.) 

Complete or syllogistic statement of an argument may often 
be more convincing, or its fallacy may be more easily detected, 
from bringing the terms more distinctly before the mind. By 



184 The Intellect. 

supplying the major premise in each of the following argu- 
ments, its validity or fallacy will be more clearly seen. 

"A slave is a human being, and therefore ought not to be 
held in bondage." 

"He is not thirsty, and therefore is not suffering from fever." 

"No war is popular, because a war increases taxation." 

"The Reformation was accompanied and followed by many 
disturbances, and is therefore to be condemned/'" 

"All plants contain cellular tissue, hence no animals are 
plants." 

The value of deduction for enlarging our real knowledge is 
seen to best advantage in the mathematical sciences. No 
doubt, in a sense, all the truths of geometry are wrapped up in 
its postulates and axioms; and all the truths of speculative as- 
tronomy are contained in the law of gravitation. But the in- 
terpretation, unfolding, explication, of these facts in a shape fit 
for the human mind to grasp, is a task for the ingenuity and 
ability of generations of mathematicians and astronomers. 

A further question arises; — How do we know the major 
premise is correct, that its statement is true ? In mathematical 
reasoning the truth of the major premise may be contained in 
the definitions or previously deduced from them. In geome- 
try, if we define a line as the shortest distance between two 
points, we may rightly take as a major premise, " all straight 
lines are shorter than bent ones." Or, if the definition of a 
triangle implies that it has three sides, we may correctly assert 
this universally in the major premise. 

But in most reasoning there may be room for doubt at this 
point. How do we know that all men are mortal ? Unless 
we know this on certain grounds, it is not valid to say that the 
king is a man and therefore mortal. It is plain that we cannot 
prove it by simple enumeration, for all men are certainly not 
dead yet. This introduces us to reasoning by induction. 



Induction. 185 

Induction. 

Induction is the deriving of generals from particulars. 
" That part of the reasoning process which proceeds from par- 
ticulars to generals." (Calderwood.) "The arriving at gen- 
eral propositions by means of observation." (Bain, Logic, 231.) 

" Induction is a kind of argument which infers, respecting a 
whole class, what has been ascertained respecting one or more 
individuals of that class." (Whately.) 

" Induction is the process by which we conclude that what 
is true of certain individuals of a class is true of the whole 
class, or that what is true at certain times will be true under 
similar circumstances at all times." (Mill.) 

The following is the best definition of induction as actually 
employed in science : " The legitimate inference of the un- 
known from the known, that is, of propositions applicable to 
cases hitherto unobserved and unexamined from propositions 
which are known to be true of the cases observed and examined." 
(Fowler, Inductive Logic, 9.) 

Sir Isaac Newton correctly stated the nature of induction in 
the following passage: "As in mathematics, so in natural phi- 
losophy, the investigation of difficult things by the method of 
analysis ought ever to precede the method of composition. 
This analysis consists in making experiments and observa- 
tions and in drawing general conclusions from them by induc- 
tion. And although the arguing from experiments and obser- 
vations by induction be no demonstration of general conclu- 
sions, yet it is the best way of arguing which the nature of 
things admits of, and may be looked upon as so much the 
stronger by how much the induction is more general." 
(Quoted by Lewes, Problems, I, 51.) 

To reason by induction, then, is to take certain facts, as 
found by observation or experiment, and place them as rep- 



1 86 The Intellect. 

resentatives of the whole class of objects to which they be- 
long, assuming that what is true of these few objects is true of 
the whole class. Obviously the cogency of all arguments 
founded on such a basis depends on the accuracy and extent 
of the observations, or else on the nature of the experiments. 

.For example, if I find that a shilling and a feather fall in the 
same time in a vacuum, I do not need to try a thousand experi- 
ments on different objects, gold, paper, wood, lead, before I 
admit the universality of the fact. A few repetitions with the 
same objects, simply to eliminate possible errors, are as con- 
vincing as a hundred, and I am prepared to declare the gen- 
eral truth that all bodies, not merely silver and feathers, fall 
with the same speed in a vacuum. 

" When the chemist has shown by a single experiment that 
nitrogen will not support combustion, we believe it will be just 
the same through all future time. If we withhold our assent it 
is from a doubt whether the experiment was properly made." 
(Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, I, 55.) 

But when the argument concerns more complicated subjects, 
politics, morals, or even animal life, the danger of mistake is 
vastly greater, and the number of instances must be propor- 
tionately larger. A negative conclusion also introduces diffi- 
culty and doubt. For example, — 

Aristotle mentioned it as a curious fact that no animal ever 
died on the sea-shore at the ebbing of the tide. Pliny said 
this was a mistake, and the statement was true only of man. 

The delusion was scientifically disproved only so recently as 
1727, and probably still lingers in popular superstition. 

To prove the effect of a medicine in disease, as quinine in 
ague, would evidently require a careful elimination of disturb- 
ing causes, and many observations. But when a barometer 
was carried for the first time to the top of a high hill, the press- 
ure of the atmosphere in all places and times was proved at 



Induction. 187 

a stroke, never again to be doubted by any one capable of 
reasoning and acquainted with the subject. 

There are some who declare that the step taken by the mind 
in induction is from particular to particular, not from particu- 
lars to generals. For example, if I take a barometer to the 
top of a mountain and the mercury falls, I infer that if I take 
it upon yonder mountain the mercury will also fall, or that if 
I bring another barometer upon the same mountain it will fall. 
But there is just as much ground for drawing the conclusion 
of one mountain as another, one barometer as another, just as 
much ground for applying it to all as to one. The general 
term is therefore latent, if not expressed. 

The axiom on which induction rests has been stated in 
many forms. The most usual form is that given by Professor 
Bain, the " Law of the Uniformity of Nature," which he calls 
the " most fundamental assumption of all human knowledge." 
" This axiom," he says, is the common ground of all inference, 
whether avowedly inductive, or induction disguised under the 
forms of deduction. Without this assumption experience can 
prove nothing. . . . This must be received without proof; 
it can repose on nothing more fundamental than itself. If we 
seem to offer any proof for it, we merely beg it in another 
shape." (Logic, 227.) 

* We must call attention to the fact that Bain here distinctly 
assumes an intuitive origin for this axiom. Mr. Mill, while 
accepting the axiom as the basis of induction and as true in 
itself, insists that it is itself derived from experience. 

Mr. Herbert Spencer resorts to the law of contradiction as 
the ultimate test of truth; that is, the law that anything is true 
if we cannot conceive [imagine] the truth of the opposite. But 
the contradiction or non-contradiction is to be perceived by 
human faculties, whose correct and continued operation is thus 
taken for granted. The dictum can attain no higher certainty 



1 88 The Intellect. 

than its source. But the correct and continued operation of 
the human faculties is a part of the uniformity of nature, and 
therefore this axiom seems to rest upon the other, and to have 
no highest certainty. 

President Porter does not base induction on any one axiom 
but mentions six principles or assumptions " which are a priori 
to the ordinary processes of inductive inquiry." These are, 
(i) The relation of substance and attribute. (2) The reality 
of causative energy. (3) The relations of time and space. 
(4) That nature "is consistent with herself, or uniform in her 
methods of revealing or suggesting what man is prompted to 
interpret or explain." (5) That "physical forces are regulated 
and controlled by design." (6) " That the rational methods 
of the divine and human intellect are similar." 

Many writers accept the uniformity of nature as an axiom, 
without noticing that in thus making the unchangeableness of 
nature an intuitive truth, they exclude the possibility of miracles 
and of creation, if not of intelligent design. It is not at all 
surprising that evolutionists should rest everything upon the 
uniformity of nature. Moreover, sensationalists and others 
who disbelieve in the reality of causation, naturally adopt the 
same axiom, for they cannot rise higher, to the really intuitive 
axiom of causation, having excluded it by their assumptions. 

But we affirm that the principle or fact of the uniformity of 
nature is not an axiom in any proper sense of the word, but 
a generalization from the facts of nature. It is but another 
name for the reign of law, the fact that all physical phenomena 
are subject to law, that is, certain uniformities of causation 
which men observe, and classify, and call laws. This concep- 
tion of universal law is a late one in the history of the human 
mind. Early man supposes the fact to be that all unusual 
phenomena are the work of supernatural causes. And even in 
an educated and scientific generation, there are thousands who 



Induction. 189 

believe in magic of various kinds, by which disease is cured, 
and other effects are produced without means. 

Again, if the world has had a beginning, or if miracles have 
ever interrupted the chain of causation, or if the world is 
guided by infinite intelligence toward a moral end, then the 
assertion of the uniformity of nature, the universality of law, is 
not correct. 

As we have shown when discussing causation, the true axiom 
is, the uniformity of causation. President Hopkins, treating of 
the axiom underlying induction, says: "There is none, except 
the uniformity of causation. By this we mean that the same 
causes, operating under the same circumstances, will produce 
the same effects. Instead of this, modern science assumes as 
the axiom of induction that nature is uniform. . . . This 
is the one postulate of mere scientists on which their whole 
structure rests. But so far is the general proposition that 
nature is uniform from beinsf at the basis of our induction that 
it is itself the result of induction." (Outline Study of Man, 
168.) 

This principle of the uniformity of causation evidently de- 
pends on the reality of efficiency in causation. Indeed, it 
amounts to this axiom or intuition, that cause is real efficiency, 
plus the logical principle of identity. 

" Mr. Lewes states the latter thus: "The validity of conclu- 
sions rests on the preservation of homogeneity in the terms and 
the identity of their ratios." (Problems I, 91.) It is always 
understood as a necessary condition of reasoning that the terms 
of a judgment remain the same while the judgment lasts. For 
example, if I say, "Water quenched my thirst yesterday and 
to-day, hence water has always this property of quenching 
thirst," I assume that the state of my system will be the same, in 
any future experiments, that no fever will be present disturb- 
ing my circulation, that the properties of water will remain the 
13 



190 The Intellect. 

same, that it will not be impregnated with salt or poison, and 

will not be lukewarm, etc. All these are really identical prop- 
ositions, as much so as. a equals a, or, what is is, or, water is 
water, or, thirst is thirst: while they are so, they will be so. 

Indeed, as we showed under causation, it the " uniformity of 
nature *' is true, and so tar as it is true, it must have its rational 
ground in real efficiency of causation. 

But much that is called induction is not really so. For 
example, if I find that water quenches my thirst to-day, I shall 
probably resort to water to-morrow when I am thirsty. But 
this does nor necessarily imply induction. It may be mere 
associative expectation, and we find it constantly exercised by 
the lower animals- It is not induction unless a general truth 
be derived by the mind, as, in this case, that water always 
quenches thirst, the circumstances remaining the same. 

Of course, the reduction of all reasoning to association or 
associative expectation is favorable to the hypotheses of evolu- 
tion and sensationalism. And we contend that the only escape 
from what is false in these theories, is to be found in the 
true doctrine of causation. We also contend that this is the 
only solid basis for induction. Mill bases induction on another 
induction, as the Hindus found the earth on an elephant, 
which stands on a tortoise: and Bain is obliged to assume an 
intuitive axiom, contrary to all his principles. 

Further elaboration of the theory of reasoning does not seem 
necessary to psychology, but belongs to the science of Logic. 



THE LOWER ANIMALS. 



The curious differences and more curious resemblances be- 
tween the intelligence of the lower animals and that of the 
human race, have led to many speculations. Most philoso- 
phers have been content, however, to ignore the whole subject, 
and therefore, we cannot quote many great names in support 
of our conclusions. The truth on this subject lies between 
two extreme parties. 

On the one hand, it was formerly the custom to consider 
the intelligence of the brutes of a totally different kind from 
that of man, something mysterious and inexplicable, more the 
result of divine guidance and implantation than human rea- 
son. 

On the other hand the evolutionist writers of the present 
day minimize the difference between man and the brutes, and 
teach that both forms of intelligence are of the same charac- 
ter, differing only in degree of development and in the nature 
of the environment. 

Mr. H. Spencer has elaborately endeavored to show that 
there is a gradation by insensible degrees from the lowest 
forms of sentient existence to the highest achievements of hu- 
man thought; that there is no break in the progress, no place 
where a new principle comes in to give a new meaning to as- 
sociation and sensation. He is therefore obliged to undertake 
to demonstrate that all reasoning is only comparison, induc- 
tion is only association, concepts are not mental products but 
brain products or images, and all the realities of things are un- 
knowable. 



192 ' The Intellect. 

We affirm that the reasoning power is the special endow- 
ment of man, and constitutes, with the knowledge of moral 
distinctions, his crown of supremacy over the creation. Even 
Mr. Lewes sees this truth, and states it as follows. 

" When it is said that animals, however intelligent, have no 
intellect, the meaning is that they have perceptions and judg- 
ments, but no conceptions, no general ideas, no symbols for 
logical operations. They are intelligent, for we see them 
guided to action by judgment; they adapt their actions by 
means of guiding sensations, and adapt things to their ends. 
Their mechanism is a sentient, intelligent mechanism. But 
they have not conception, or what we especially designate as 
thought, that is, that logical function which deals with gener- 
alities, ratios, symbols, as feeling deals with particulars and ob- 
jects." (Problems, I, 142.) 

Mr. Lewes proceeds, it is true, to explain this away to some 
extent, by saying that language is the necessary instrument of 
these processes of conception and reasoning, without which 
man would be a mere animal. " Language is the creator and 
sustainer of that ideal world in which the noblest part of hu- 
man activity finds a theatre." (154.) This contains an im- 
portant truth and one often overlooked. The necessity of 
language to abstract thought is often underestimated. But 
language is a possession of man, not a faculty. It is the in- 
tellect of man which requires language, not language which 
produces intellect. 

Many of the brutes have organs well enough adapted for 
some kind of articulate speech, and some can imitate very well 
the sounds of the human voice. They could learn to speak if 
they had any occasion to do so. but they have no thoughts 
that need any expression beyond the power of cries and gest- 
ures. " There is no occasion for language proper, and no 
ability to acquire it, without the power of abstraction. . . , 



The Lower Animals. 193 

So long as the mind deals only with concrete things, their im- 
ages and the impressions left by them on the memory, they 
themselves serve as a sufficient attachment to experience, and 
the only attachment of which it can avail itself. The moment, 
however, the mind reaches an abstract relation, separates the 
place, time, and causal dependencies of things from the things 
themselves, it requires language to designate, retain, and im- 
part these products of thought. . . . Speech is the su- 
preme instrument of abstract thought, and all thought proper is 
abstract." (Bascom, Comparative Psychology, 214.) 

The lower animals have no abstract ideas, can form no con- 
cepts, and can thus have no material of reasoning in the true 
sense of the word. It is true they perform many actions 
which are often attributed to reasoning; but in this matter 
three points should be remembered. (1) There is much con- 
fusion in the way in which such words as reasoning, induction, 
thought, etc., are used, and the observers of animals are sel- 
dom trained to accuracy and carefulness in the use of logical 
and philosophical terms. (2) There is much looseness of 
description current on such subjects, although a mere un- 
noticed trifle may be of fundamental importance toward a 
right or wrong theory of the subject. There is also much ex- 
aggeration.- (3) Most writers are somewhat under the influ- 
ence of prejudg'ment, naturalists in favor of evolution, phi- 
losophers in favor of the glory of abstract thought. 

The mental life of the brutes is associative, and association 
is an automatic coherence of impressions. They are capable 
of what some call induction, but that kind of induction is 
really associative expectation, as we have seen. Real induc- 
tion results in a universal. 

A careful inspection of the most wonderful instincts and 
feats of intelligence authentically recorded of animals, shows 
that in many cases association and automatic action are suffi- 



194 The Intellect. 

crent to account for what has been called the work of reason, 
and it may fairly be said that probably in all such cases the 
real difficulty is no greater. 

Instinct is a kind of automatic intelligence. " Instinct," 
says Mr. Herbert Spencer, " may be regarded as a kind of or- 
ganized memory." (Psychology, I, 445-) It has grown up 
with the organism, and is really a part of the organism. This 
is shown by the fact that those animals most remarkable for 
instinct are incapable of changing their habits, or learning any- 
thing new, or adapting themselves to new circumstances. A 
nation of ants or bees is like the Chinese nation. Supersti- 
tions, habits, customs, ingrained in the brain by centuries of 
stupid repetition, become so nearly automatic that such a peo- 
ple cannot conceive of a change, of an improvement, of a dif- 
ferent order of society. So the ants and bees, having become 
fully adapted to their environment remain the same even 
when the environment is changed, with instincts as unchange- 
able as the superstitions of arrested civilization'*. 

Bees, though taken to a tropical climate, continue to lay up 
honey, where it is useless to them. Hens often set without 
eggs. Beavers in captivity sometimes build dams in the cor- 
ners of the room. Sir John Lubbock tried to make ants 
build a bridge, but they would not even lay a bit of straw 
across a crack in the ground, could not learn anything new. 
He also showed that " ants and bees communicate little with 
each other, far less than has been supposed; that they do not 
report directions and plans, and have but a limited knowledge 
of them, and move chiefly by scent. They are inattentive to 
sounds, guide themselves but little by vision, and have very 
acute scent and touch. These are the senses which favor or- 
ganic development, while vision, and above all hearing, min- 
ister to reflection." (Bascom, op. cit., 154.) 

" Parasites on bees that could be easily removed by com- 



The Lower Animals. 195 

panions are allowed to remain, the sufferer receiving no aid. 
If we compare bees and ants with birds, we shall find 
the latter more free and variable in their constructive methods, 
not because they show more skill than the insects, but because 
a larger share of intelligence and a smaller share of instinct go 
to their composition." 

The automatic nature of instinct may also be seen directly. 
Many instincts are the result of structure, or at least correlated 
w T ith a peculiar structure. The bee could not build cells with- 
out the power of secreting wax; the two capabilities are cor- 
relative. The silk-worm and the spider must be able to spin, 
and the hornet to make paper, the fighting-ant to secrete poison, 
and the beetle to generate a strong odor, or their wonderful in- 
stincts could not be shown to exist. " The organ and the 
function correlate, and find their simple expression in the in- 
stinctive action. ... Nor is it easy to understand how 
the two could have arisen otherwise than together as parts of 
the same organic development. . . . The organs can 
hardly be supposed to have existed without the function, wait- 
ing for experience to impart it; nor could experience direct its 
use till the function was present." (Bascom, op. cit. 157, 175.) 

A multitude of examples might be quoted of the stupidity 
of animals, showing their inability to learn, to form new habits, 
to adapt themselves to new circumstances. The number of 
such anecdotes is hardly inferior to the stories of their wonder- 
ful instincts. A young chicken cannot learn from a young 
turkey the useful art of catching flies.. "A hen will adhere to 
her empty nest, even after violent dissuasion." " After bring- 
ing a caterpillar to her nest, the wasp always leaves it before 
the entrance and goes in to see if everything is in order within 
the cavity. During this absence of the wasp Fabre removed 
her booty to some distance, forty times in succession. Forty 
times the wasp brought it back, but each time examined her 



196 The Intellect. 

nest afresh before she attempted to put her prey into it." 
(Brehm, in Bascom, 225.) 

The training which men sometimes bestow upon the brutes 
never develops reason, but only forms new associations. Ham- 
erton remarks of a wonderfully trained company of dogs, that 
when their master died, no one else could get them to do a 
single trick. " When the ox obeys a word of command, there 
is in this obedience no more comprehension of language than 
when he is quickened by a goad." 

If instinct were of the same nature as reasoning, it would 
be of a vastly higher degree, and would show a stage of knowl- 
edge in the bee and the spider far above, not below, that of 
man. If the comb of the bee were planned and made as a 
man's house is made, it would imply an amount of mathemati- 
cal knowledge attainable by few men even in this developed 
age. Such an argument would prove too much. Accordingly, 
the usual attempt is to reduce the intelligence of man to as- 
sociation, or automatic action. 

Man does not have these strange unreasoning actions, in so 
far as he does not need them, being guided by a higher asso- 
ciative power, or Jby true reason. The new-born child cries 
when the cold air reaches his lungs, and sucks when his lips 
feel the breast, and these are automatic actions, like those of 
wasps and bees. But beyond these he has hardly a trace of 
instinct proper. 

Yet men do actually lead, to a great extent, an associative 
life, similar to that of the highest of the brutes. Many of our 
actions and series of actions are guided by habit, require no 
reasoning, and exhibit no mental activity but association. Who 
has not heard even a long conversation without a trace of in- 
tellect, in the sense of reasoning power? Instinct and real 
intelligence, are always in inverse ratio, as also are association 
and reasoning. When the mind of a nation becomes stereo- 



The Lower Animals. 197 

typed in superstition and custom, it forgets to a great extent 
its privilege of true thought, and lives an associative life, little 
above the brutes. 

Beast-minds must of course act in the same manner as the 
human mind, so far as they are conditioned by the nature of 
the objects of knowledge. Since the external world exists in 
space, and cannot otherwise exist, it must be known, if known 
at all, under relations of space, both by men and by brutes. 
But the abstract idea of space, the generalized concept, is some- 
thing which no beast-mind can frame. 

There is no approach in the animals to any such capacity. 
To affirm that they form abstracts and concepts implies a false 
idea of what abstracts and concepts are, confusing them with 
images, representations. These two theories are logically in- 
separable; — (1) That the mind of man is a gradual develop- 
ment from the intelligence of brutes, without any difference 
in kind. (2) That concepts and abstracts are the result of the 
action of a series of objects on the mind, not of the mind on 
a series of objects. 

As to the question, whether the mental life of the animals is 
a manifestation of an immaterial principle, nothing is really 
known about it. Some reference will be made to it under the 
next head. 



NATURE OF THE MIND. 



Having studied the phenomena of intellect we are prepared 
to ask understanding^ the question: — What is th*e mind, the 
subject of these phenomena ? Is the term mind only another 
name for the brain, acting in certain higher relations? Can 
the phenomena we have described be accounted for on the 
supposition that thought and feeling and choice are products 
of the interactions of nerve-cells in the brain? Or are the 
powers we have discussed too peculiar, too wonderful, too dif- 
ferent from the properties of matter, to admit such a supposi- 
tion ? Must we pass over into the realm of the inconceivable, 
the immaterial, the spiritual, in order to find an agent capable 
of these functions ? 

A theory of the mind not uncommon in ancient times, is 
that the mind is a product of the harmonious blending of all 
the powers of the body. The favorite illustration was that as 
a musical instrument produces music when all its parts are at- 
tuned and proportioned, so the body produces the soul or mind. 
But this comparison really favors the opposite theory, for a 
musical instrument requires a player, or it makes no music, 
the soul corresponds not to the music, but to the player. But 
dropping this unfortunate comparison, the soul cannot con- 
sist in a mere consensus {jnbegriff) of all the atoms of the body. 
The materials of the body are constantly changing. Several 
times in an average life, it is supposed, they are all removed 
and replaced, yet the personality remains the same. Limbs 



Nature of the Mind. 199 

may be lost, senses destroyed, yet the mind not seriously im- 
paired. The whole body therefore cannot be the producer of 
the mind. 

A somewhat similar view is the modern theory that the mind 
is a series of sensations and feelings. This is rather held dog- 
matically than attempted to be proved by the sensationalist 
school of writers. Especially since Mr. Mill admitted that 
this series of sensations must be held to be aware of itself as 
past and future, and that "this theory has intrinsic difficulties 
which it seems to me beyond the power of metaphysical analysis 
to remove," the theory has had but little vitality of its own. 
We have already referred to the difficulties of this view. It 
is really indistinguishable from materialism. For, to say that 
a series of sensations passively received makes up the mind is 
to say that the mind is a function of the brain. All other phi- 
losophers mean by the mind that which thinks, that which has 
a series of sensations. It is absurd to say that a series of sen- 
sations has a series of sensations, either actively or passively. 
This view can really mean nothing but that the brain is the 
mind. These writers are thus endeavoring, by using the term 
mind in a new and strange signification, not equivalent to "that 
which thinks," to escape the charge of materialism. 

Mr. H. Spencer has grafted the associationalist psychology 
upon the hypothesis of evolution. He recognizes the absurd- 
ity of denning mind as a series of sensations. " The feelings 
called sensations cannot of themselves constitute mind. 
Mind is constituted only when each sensation is assimilated 
to the faint forms of antecedent like sensations." (Psychology, 
I, 185.) This means, we suppose, that memory is an essential 
power of mind. Again; — " The progress of correspondence 
between the organism and its environment necessitates a 
gradual reduction of the sensorial changes to a succession, 
and by so doing evolves a distinct consciousness, a conscious- 



200 The Intellect. 

ness that becomes higher as the succession becomes more 
rapid and the correspondence more complete." (I, 403.) 

Why successive changes necessitate consciousness Mr. Spencer 
does not explain; but these and other passages seem to imply- 
that, at a certain stage of progress, there arises a new kind of 
being, capable of memory and consciousness. Accordingly, 
he has a chapter on the "Substance of Mind," in which he 
undertakes to prove that if there be any substance underlying 
the phenomena it must be unknowable. "If every state of 
mind is some modification of this substance of mind, there 
can be no state of mind in which the unmodified substance 
of mind is present." (I, 146.) Very true! Substance is 
known only through phenomena, as all philosophers admit. 
Being, apart from quality, relation, or phenomenon, is equiva- 
lent to non-being. Again he says; — "Knowledge implies 
something known, and something which knows." (II, 307.) 

But in many other passages Mr. Spencer speaks of mind 
very much as do Bain and Mill. He speaks of " the succes- 
sive changes which constitute intelligence." (I, 403.) He 
says; — " The proximate components of mind are of two 
broadly contrasted kinds, feelings and the relations between 
feelings." (I, 163.) "The multitudinous forms of mind 
known as different feelings may be composed of simpler units 
of feeling." (I, 156.) 

The origin of mind he describes as follows. " As soon as 
the organism, feebly sensitive to a jar or vibration propagated 
through its medium, contracts itself so as to be in less danger 
from the adjacent source of disturbance, we perceive a nas- 
cent form of the life classed as psychical." (I, 392.) But 
such actions are plainly automatic; mind, then, on this theory* 
is not that which thinks and feels, but something made up of 
nervous shocks. Indeed, he uses this very phrase " nervous 
shocks " in just this way. Professor Fiske, in " Cosmic Phi- 



Nature of the Mind. 201 

losophy," tendered the amendment, " psychical shocks," which 
Mr. Spencer accepted as expressing his meaning, showing that 
in his view nervous shocks and psychical shocks are only differ- 
ent names for the same phenomena. 

Mr. Spencer admits, in the following passages, that his theory 
is inadequate to account for the phenomena commonly known 
as mental action. " Even could we succeed in proving that 
mind consists of homogeneous units of feeling of the nature 
specified, we should be unable to say what the mind is. . * 
Let it be granted that all existence distinguished as subjective 
is resolvable into units of consciousness, similar in kind to 
those which we know as nervous shocks, each of which is a 
correlative of a rythmical motion of a material unit or group 
of such units. Canv we then think of the subjective and ob- 
jective activities as the same ? Can the oscillations of a mole- 
cule be represented in consciousness side by side with a nerv- 
ous shock, and the two be recognized as one ? No effort 
enables us to assimilate them. That a unit of feeling has 
nothing in common with a unit of motion becomes more than 
ever manifest when we bring the two into juxtaposition." (I, 

157, 158.) 

All views of this character proceed on the supposition that 
matter is not the dead, merely space-filling reality of the ordi- 
nary view, but a far different thing, " having within it the 
promise and potency of all terrestrial life," and so of mental 
phenomena also. " Materialistic views which really have any 
faith in their own affirmations, proceed from the assumption 
that l matter ' is something far better than the name denotes, 
or than it appears from the outside, but has a property of its 
own, out of which spiritual states are developed, just as out of 
another property are developed extension, impenetrability, etc." 
(Lotze, Dictate, Psychologie, §60.) 

But to affirm that there is but one substance, a " two-faced 



202 The Intellect. 

somewhat," with two sets of attributes, physical on one side 
and mental on the other, is a doctrine not practically distin- 
guishable from pantheism. It matters little whether we call 
the one substance Matter, or God, and the system pantheism, 
or materialism, or cosmism, it meets with all the difficulties 
and objections of pantheism. 

The psychological objection to such a scheme is, that it can- 
not account for the phenomena of the unity of consciousness, 
and the individuality of minds, (i) Unity of consciousness 
cannot arise from a congeries of material atoms. The phi- 
losophers who hold this theory make much of atoms, molecules, 
elements, nerve-cells, and the interaction of these elements, 
whether these things are consistent with their monism or not. 
A consciousness resulting from a consensus of such atoms or 
elements should be manifold or fragmentary. All analogies of 
reasoning require that, in order to produce a unitary con- 
sciousness out of such a collection of elements, there should be 
some dominant entity, perduring throughout the changes of 
the atoms, and making use of them for higher ends. 

"It is impossible," says Lotze, "on this view to conceive 
that unity of consciousness which is a fact of experience, and 
which must not be arbitrarily withdrawn because it is mysteri- 
ous, in order to explain the rest more easily." And he goes on, in 
a passage too long for quotation, to show that all physical analo- 
gies, such as the new force which is the resultant of the com- 
position of forces, are inapplicable and misleading. (Dictate, 
Psychologie, §61.) 

What has to be accounted for is not simply a series of 
feelings, but a "series aware of itself;" the ineradicable be- 
lief in the unity and identity of the thinking principle of 
each person. (See D*bal, empirische Psychologie, 15.) 

(2) The conscious separate individuality of each mind, is 
inexplicable on such a theory. If matter be a continuous sub- 



Nature of the Mind. 203 

stance, underlying with its single being all atoms and molecules, 
and endowed with divine as well as material attributes, this 
might be conceived to account for a kind of diffused intelli- 
gence or omniscience, as in the pantheistic hypothesis, or to 
account for a consciousness residing in each molecule sepa- 
rately, but it cannot account for an individual consciousness, of 
limited extent. Mr. Spencer, accordingly, speaks constantly 
of " mind," the origin and composition and substance of 
mind, not of a a mind," my mind, or your mind. 

" The notion of an indefinite thought-stuff, which admits of 
integration, implicitly assumes the materiality of thought, and 
results from the fancy that thoughts may be found among 
external objects. But thoughts are acts, and not stuff or 
material. As such they must have a subject. My thoughts 
demand a subject, and that subject is myself. As such sub- 
ject or agent, I am a substance, in the only intelligible sense of 
that word." (Bowne, Metaphysics, 382.) 

It is then mere assumption to declare that the brain is capa- 
ble of producing all the mental phenomena, without any higher 
principle, by reason of the double set of attributes pertaining 
to the atoms or molecules of which it is composed. And a 
multitude of facts about the brain go to show this result correct. 

1. Structure and development of brain and mental capacity 
are not always in proportion, either in man or in the lower 
animals. The brain of the mollusk is not less developed than 
that of the insect, but the latter is capable of far higher " psy- 
chical action," even higher than fishes and amphibia, though 
these far more nearly resemble man in nervous structure. The 
monkey tribe most resemble man, but elephants and dogs- are 
more intelligent. The brain of the dolphin is commonly said 
to be the most developed of the lower animals, but no great 
mental gifts accompany it. The brain-structure of the pachy- 
derms, elephants and swine, do not differ much, it is said, but 



204 The Intellect. 

the difference in intellect is great. v The brains of idiots, ac- 
cording to .Longet, are sometimes larger and with completer 
convolutions than those of highly gifted men. 

2. Disease or accident has removed parts of the brain with- 
out destroying the integrity of thought or memory. Longet 
relates a case where a young man lost an entire hemisphere of 
the brain without conspicuous loss of mental power. Volkman 
describes the case of a man who shot two balls into his head, 
lost a large quantity of brain, and became blind, but was 
stronger in intellect than before. 

3. Size of brain, either absolute or relative, furnishes no 
criterion of mental ability. Elephants and whales have larger 
brains than men. But some animals are said to have larger 
brains in proportion to their weight than men. If the author- 
ity of Cuvier be not sufficient to establish this last proposition, 
we may yet affirm, on the authority of Huxley, that the differ- 
ences in cranial capacity among men are far greater than 
between men and apes. But the mental differences among 
men, on the contrary, are far smaller than between men and 
apes. 

These considerations seem sufficient to establish the view 
that the brain is not an adequate cause of mental action. " The 
uncritical imagination is, of course, much impressed by the 
excessive fineness of the elements, and by the darkness which 
surrounds brain-physiology; and this darkness and mystery pass 
for argument. . . . But the question as to the reality of 
the soul does not depend on brain-physiology at all. The 
question turns on the nature of consciousness and on the im- 
possibility of producing the one from the many and the iden- 
tical from the numerically changing. So long as these ideas 
are hostile and mutually exclusive, so long will materialism be 
impossible as a rational theory." (Bowne, Metaphysics, 375.) 

The phenomena of the human intellect, then, seem to re- 



Nature of the Mind. 205 

quire as their ground a simple, individual, unitary substance in 
each person, of a different nature from matter, yet able to be 
in connection with a material organism. 

This supposition does not indeed obviate all difficulties. It 
would be to be supposed that on such a subject human faculties 
would be able to trace but a very little way the hidden reality. 
We make no pretensions to solving all the problems, or an- 
swering all the questions which can arise. But, on the other 
hand, the most candid representatives of evolutionism and 
empiricism also disclaim all such pretensions. " The latest 
results," says Mr. Fiske, "of scientific inquiry, whether in the 
region of objective psychology cr molecular physics, leave the 
gulf between matter and mind quite as wide as it was judged 
to be in the time of Descartes." (Cosmic Philosophy, II, 445.) 

But if we accept the doctrine of the individuality, unity, sim- 
plicity, and immateriality of the human soul, there arises an 
interesting question, — How far do the mental phenomena of 
the lower animals compel us to the same conclusion with refer- 
ence to beast-souls? Very little is known on which to base an 
argument on this point, but the following considerations seem 
to us of weight. 

1. We know so little about the consciousness of the brutes 
that we cannot confidently say whether it is of such a nature as 
to require a simple and individual subject in each animal. 

2. It is not at all certain that immateriality involves either 
immortality or moral freedom; so that we may perhaps admit 
an immaterial substratum of physical life, or of the mental life 
of the brutes, without in the least derogating from the superior 
dignity of the human soul and intellect. 

3. We have seen reason to believe that man has mental 
powers higher in kind and not simply in degree than those of 
the brutes. If this be accepted, we may perhaps even hold, 
that man's physical system and associative mental life are the 

H 



2o6 The Intellect. 

product of evolution, but that at a certain time God breathed 
into man a nobler spirit, endowed him with personality and 
immortality. 

Another solution should be mentioned, as ot import e in 
the history of thought, namely the theory of metempsychosis. 
Philosophers of a certain turn of mind have been wont in all 
ages to believe that souls pass through lower stages of existence 
in various lower animals before entering human bodies, and 
may return again to the bottom round of the ladder of being, 
to begin once more their weary ascent, as a punishment for sin. 
This is poetic imagination, not sober speculation. 

Another interesting question is the location of the soul in 
the body. If it be immaterial we cannot probably properly 
speak of it as being in any point or points of space. Yet 
many writers, though accepting the immateriality of the soul, 
have sought to discover its location in the body. Descartes 
placed it in a part of the brain called the pineal gland, which 
however, is not a gland at all, and is now known to be of no 
more importance to the mental life than any other part of the 
brain. Others have located it in the whole cerebrum, and 
some in the whole body. 

Lotze, accepting the Herbartian doctrine that the soul is a 
single element, a monad, yet declares that it may occupy more 
than one point of space at the same time, in the brain or the 
body. 

More important is the question of the relation of soul and body. 
That there is such a connection, that each has a wonderful power 
over the other, has been a commonplace of philosophy for many 
ages. A vast number of instances, many of them very familiar, 
might be repeated. How soul and body operate on each 
other, either in these abnormal ways, or in ordinary perception 
or volition, cannot be said to be within the range of human 
investigation. The pantheistic or monistic explanation, that 



Nature of the Mind. 207 

they are both of the same essence, seems at first promising. 
But on reflection we see that it is just as hard to understand 
how changes in one set of qualities can produce changes or 
motions in another set of qualities of the same substance, as it 
is to understand how two distinct substances can operate on 
one another. Monism, whether it spiritualizes matter or 
materializes spirit, can afford no real assistance. 

The mystery and difficulty may, however, be divided, if not 
diminished by the reflection that action and reaction between 
two atoms of matter are just as inexplicable and mysterious as 
the mutual influence of soul and body. But here we are look-' 
ing over the boundary of the field of metaphysics, to enter 
which the present is not a proper occasion. (See Bowne's 
Metaphysics, 113.) 

The subject of the immortality of the soul belongs to the 
science of theology. 



THE FEELINGS, 

PRELIMINARIES. 



I. DEFINITIONS. 

i. The term "Feeling" has been discussed already at some 
length (pp. 59-64). Putting aside its popular and colloquial 
uses, it means, in psychology, the capacity for experiencing 
pleasure and pain. " A feeling " is thus a particular experi- 
ence of this kind, or a particular class of such experiences. 
But these experiences are so complicated with the various proc- 
esses of the intellect, and so modified by the various relations, — 
physical, social, and moral, — in which they occur, and the dif- 
ferent occasions, — internal, external, simple, and complex, — 
which excite them, that the term "The Feelings," with the 
definite Article, is unavoidably used to denote an extensive 
range of our mental and social life. It is our present task, 
therefore, to analyze these experiences, and trace in them the 
elements of Feeling and of Intellect. 

A single caution is perhaps necessary. In speaking of 
Feeling as mental power, we do not imply that the mind is an 
aggregate of parts or faculties, mechanically adjusted to each 
other. (See p. 13.) But rather, the different forms of the 
mind's activity form an organism, as it were, being means and 
ends for one another. The three forms or methods of mental 
activity are inseparable. We are obliged to describe them 



Preliminaries. 209 

separately, but neither pure Intellect, nor pure Feeling nor 
pure Will can exist. 

2. Throughout these discussions the terms Pleasure and 
Pain have a wide signification; the former means any agreeable 
feeling, the latter any disagreeable one. It would be well if 
usage permitted the term Unpleasure, giving us two correlative 
words, like the German^Z^/ and Unlust. In the absence of 
such a convenience, we are obliged to use the ordinary terms, 
pleasure and pain. 

II. NOMENCLATURE. 

We call this power of the mind by the name Feeling, and 
the various products of its activity we call Feelings; but we do 
not choose this nomenclature because it is perfect or free from 
objection, but because it is, on the whole, the most convenient, 
and is already in somewhat general use. 

Other names are used by various writers, but they all seem 
to us to be still more objectionable. Dr. McCosh and others use 
the title "The Emotions." We object to this that it is com- 
monly and properly used in a narrower signification, which will 
be explained later on. It is hence an unusual, if not inaccu- 
rate, use of language, to speak of Appetite, Desire, ^Esthetic 
feeling, Moral feeling, etc., as Emotions, for Emotion is 
properly used to denote a class of feelings, parallel with these. 
Again Emotion always means a product, and cannot denote the 
power of experiencing the feeling; an infelicity which is avoided 
by saying Feelings and Feeling. 

Many American writers use the term Sensibility, in the 
Singular, for the power, and in the Plural for its products. 
This word, however, is generally used by English writers in a 
different meaning, including sensation, and not including the 
higher kinds of feeling. Thus, Caldervvood, in the additions 
to Fleming's Vocabulary, defines Sensibility as "the capacity 



2io The Feelings. 

for receiving impressions, belonging to the extremity of the 
nerves of sensation." It is, besides, a long and awkward 
word, and is colloquially used in the meaning of "sensitive- 
ness." 

The term "Susceptibility," used by some, besides being still 
longer and more awkward, has the disadvantage of having a 
passive signification, and thus seeming to imply that this power 
of the mind is receptive only. 

III. CLASSIFICATION. 

Most writers on this subject deem it necessary to frame a 
complete classification of the feelings. It is impossible, how- 
ever, to classify them without cross-divisions. For example, 
Dr. Thomas Brown divides the Feelings according to time into 
Retrospective, Immediate, and Prospective; an ingenious and 
suggestive division. But it obliges him to subdivide each class 
of feelings, according as they have reference to self or to other 
persons, and again according as they have or have not moral 
quality. This complication brings together under one head 
such incongruous feelings as cheerfulness, wonder, the feeling 
of beauty and that of the ludicrous. Nothing can be gained 
by adhering to such a scheme. 

Several writers divide the Feelings into Physical, Intellectual, 
and Spiritual; but many of them may run through the whole 
three phases, recurring in various combinations. The cross- 
divisions thus required lead either to absurd combinations like 
those of Brown, or to a superficial treatment of the subject. 
The popular names, moreover, by which they are generally 
designated, are so inexact and vacillating that no classification 
founded on them can have any value. But it is impossible to 
restrict these names to definite and accurate use, because of 
their extremely common colloquial use. 

Attempts have been made, especially by Mr. Herbert Spencer 



Preliminaries. 211 

and his followers, to overcome this difficulty by providing a 
fully descriptive name for each class of feelings, indicating their 
origin and connection. This method has been carried to an 
extreme, with great ingenuity, by Mercier, in "Mind" for 1884. 
It leads to such cumbrous titles as, — "Self-conservative En- 
vironmentally-initiated" feelings, and to such vague terms as 
"Antagonistic Feeling." This last, for example, is defined by 
Mercier as " Feeling which corresponds with the relation to 
the organism of an Agent in the environment which is cog- 
nized as actively noxious." It is also subdivided according as 
the "noxious agent" is of greater or less power, according as 
counteraction is or is not elicited, and according to the form of 
this counteraction when elicited, and its success or lack of 
success. But these subdivisions have to be reduced, at last, 
to the common, popular terms, whereupon the division is found 
to be redundant. Each feeling, fear, for instance, may appear 
under each particular set of circumstances. Such a classifica- 
tion, however interesting, adds nothing to our real knowledge. 
We do not attempt any classification of the feelings, but shall 
describe them in the order, so far as possible, of their physio- 
logical relations. But we shall follow out each class or kind of 
feeling, when once taken up, through all its forms and implica- 
tions, so far as seems best. Thus, the discussion of Pleasure and 
Pain, carried up into the pleasures -of the sense of Sight, natur- 
ally suggests the theory of Beauty; and the Emotions, or feel- 
ings which express themselves in bodily movements, are natur- 
ally followed by Laughter, and this by the Idea of the Comic. 



212 The Feelings. 

IV. FEELING AND SENSATION. 

i. It is not easy to draw a distinct line between Sensation 
and Feeling. The internal or organic sensations (see p. 21), 
occupy the middle ground between them, and are perhaps the 
substratum, out of which both are developed. For example, 
hunger and thirst may be said to be pains, or called sensations 
which give information of emptiness of the stomach and dry- 
ness of the throat. 

Physical feeling, again, is usually inseparable from sensation. 
For example, toothache seems purely a pain; but it is always 
accompanied with a localizing sensation, more or less accu- 
rate, conveying information of its locality, in other words, 
having an intellectual content. The same is true of nearly all 
physical feelings. 

On the other hand, it is held by many authorities that all 
sensation is accompanied with feeling, that is, every sensation 
has an agreeable or disagreeable tone. The plain fact that we 
are not always conscious of this tone, they account for by the 
theory that our attention is usually fixed on the content of a 
sensation, owing to the importance of this for our daily life, so 
that its tone is lost to us. (Lotze, Dictate, Psychologie, § 48.) 
The fact seems to be that feeling is the primitive form of ex- 
perience, coming earlier in the individual and also in the scale 
of terrestrial life, than discriminative sensation. 

2. Each class of feelings, as of sensations, has a specific 
quality of its own, which is incommunicable and indescribable. 
Pleasure and Pain, as general terms, like "color," do not des- 
ignate anything actual, but an abstraction from specific pleas- 
ant and unpleasant experiences. (Lotze, op. cit., § 48.) 

And how certain nerve-changes occasion a state of con- 
sciousness known as feeling, is as completely unknown as it is 
why a certain other state, or change, or motion of a nerve oc- 
casions a sensation of light or sound. 



Preliminaries. 213 

3. Consciousness accompanies Feeling, as well as sensation. 
Without the knowledge of Self, running through all our feel- 
ings, like a thread by which they are held together, and with- 
out a felt possibility of introspection and analysis by the mind, 
there is no feeling; just as no sensations or intellectual phe- 
nomena are possible without the same accompaniment. 

V. FEELING AND INTELLECT. 

When we rise into the higher regions of the mind, a paral- 
lelism may be noted between Intellect and Feeling. 

1. There is a similarity in the resemblances and differences 
between man and the lower animals. The latter are capable 
of sensation, perception, memory, and common imagination, 
but are never known to exercise abstract reasoning, creative 
imagination, or mathematical deduction. So also they are 
capable of experiencing pain, hunger, anger, fear, love, hope, — 
but not sentimental affection, remorse, moral approval, sense 
of beauty or of the comic. In other words, the lower animals 
have all those feelings necessarily connected with their limited 
mental experience, but are incapable of those which depend 
upon a higher range of intellectual activity. 

2. We meet here, too, with the same conflict between op- 
posing schools of psychology. Those writers who derive all 
the intellectual powers from sensation, and make sensations 
transform themselves into all the higher intellectual phenom- 
ena, — are bound, of course, to treat Feeling in the same way, 
and make simple feelings of physical pleasure and pain trans- 
form themselves into all the most complicated, most elevated, 
and noblest of this class of human experiences. 

On the other hand, those who hold, as we do, that human 
reason cannot be thus accounted for, must also hold that Feel- 
ing is not merely parallel with sensation, but is a function also 
of the Spirit, entering into its highest manifestations. 



PLEASURE AND PAIN. 



After these preliminaries we have first to inquire into the 
nature of Pleasure and Pain themselves, the very basis of all 
the Feelings. Following our general plan, we shall begin with 
physical pleasure, and pain or discomfort, and discuss the top- 
ics suggested by this, before taking up the special kinds of feel- 
ing, such as Emotion, or Desire. 

It is not always easy to separate between sensations which 
have intellectual content, and the feelings with which they are 
accompanied, constituting what is called their tone. If we 
look at the mid-day sun, the pain of excessive light destroys 
perception. When we are discriminating two shades of color, 
we receive no pleasure from either, because the attention is 
absorbed in the intellectual element of likeness or difference. 

Recent investigations have done much, however, to explain 
the physiological processes which accompany physical pleasure 
and pain. 

PHYSIOLOGY OF PAIN. 

All action of a nerve, and hence all sensation, is accom- 
panied by molecular change of the nerve-substance, and so by 
waste. When the waste becomes excessive, through long-con- 
tinued or violent stimulation, fatigue, disagreeable feeling, or 
even pain, results. For example, an extremely loud sound, like 
a cannon-shot; an excess of light, as when staring at the sun; 
a biting taste, as of cayenne pepper; a strong smell, as of am- 
monia; all these are disagreeable, and soon become painful, 
and deaden the sensibility of the organ involved, showing ex- 
haustion. 



Pleasure and Pain. 215 

Disintegration or disruption of tissue is but a more extreme 
degree of the same experience. For example, raw mustard on the 
tongue occasions a disagreeable acrid taste, which soon becomes 
an acute pain; and on any other part of the skin, it causes, 
if the contact is continued for some time, acute pain and blis- 
tering, which is plainly disintegration of tissue. But pain oc- 
curs only in those tissues which are " supplied with cerebro- 
spinal nerves." The substance of the brain itself, for instance, 
is not sensitive, and no pain is felt when it is injured or cut. 

PHYSIOLOGY OF PLEASURE. 

The physiology of Pleasure of the senses is not so easily 
traced. But it seems to be proved that pleasure occurs when 
•the waste of tissue consequent on molecular change in the 
nerve-endings is repaired almost or quite as rapidly as it occurs, 
or else stimulation and repair alternate at very short intervals. 
For example, a mass of bright color gives pleasure; and, since 
green tints predominate in nature, the eye has become ad- 
justed to green, and can endure stimulation by that color far 
longer than by any other. Hence green is said to " rest the 
eye," to be less fatiguing. 

But change from one color to another gives still more and 
higher pleasure. " The amount of pleasure is probably in the 
direct ratio of the number of nerve-fibres involved, and in the 
inverse ratio of the natural frequency of excitation." (Grant 
Allen, Physiological Esthetics, 25.) 

It is important to notice, however, that variety and contrast 
introduce the intellectual element of discrimination, involving 
a quite different and higher activity than mere sense-stimula- 
tion by a mass of color. 

How it is that waste or destruction of nerve-substance ap- 
pears in consciousness as pain, while alternate waste or repair 
of nerve-substance appear in consciousness as pleasure, is a 
mystery on which these investigations throw no light. 



216 The Feelings. 

philosophical formula. 

But the philosophical content, the real meaning of pleasure 
and pain, may perhaps be not so absolutely beyond our reach, 
and attempts have been made to reduce it to a formula. 

As to physical pleasure and pain, there seems to be some 
approach to an agreement among the best authorities upon 
some form of the following theory; — That pleasure is an ac- 
companiment of those experiences which tend to the preserva- 
tion or well-being of the sentient organism, and pain a con- 
comitant of those experiences which tend to the destruction or 
injury of that organism. For obviously the opposite arrange- 
ment would tend, on the whole, to the extinction of all 
sentient life on the earth, Mr. Grant Allen, a disciple of 
Herbert Spencer, says; — "The human or animal organism 
may be conveniently regarded as a complicated and delicate 
machine, specially constructed for self-conservation and the 
production of like organisms in the future. That it should be 
so constructed as to correspond with the environment is a condi- 
tion-precedent of its existence at. all. Hence every organism, in 
proportion to the completeness of its adaptation, energetically 
resists any act which interferes with its efficiency as a working 
machine; and such interferences are known subjectively as 
pains." (Physiological ^Esthetics, 17.) 

And Mr. Spencer has said, to the same effect; — "Pleasures 
are the incentives to life-supporting acts, and pains are the de- 
terrents from life destroying acts." (Psychology, I, 284.) 

"Pleasure," says President Hopkins, "seems to have been in- 
tended as an inducement to the performance of acts which are 
to have remote consequences of which the agents themselves 
are often either ignorant or regardless. The pleasure of the 
child, and of the man too, in eating, and in muscular move- 
ment, is the inducement to do that which is necessary for the 



Pleasure and Pain. 217 

up-building of the body, but for which they generally have no 
care." (Lectures on Moral Science, 61.) 

But this theory must meet the difficulty that pleasures, if too 
often repeated, become injurious to the organism before they 
become painful; while pains, if not excessive, grow less by 
usage and habit, and cease to give warning of injury, — in- 
stance, the violently noxious taste of tobacco. Mr. Allen 
recognizes the difficulty as follows. "Pleasure and pain are 
only the reflex of the actual state of the nerves, and do not 
necessarily yield any indications of their future state. Hence,, 
actions which will ultimately yield painful sensations, may in 
their earlier stages be pleasurable, and vice versa'"' (Op. 
cit. 29.) 

Mr. Spencer and his disciple both meet the difficulty by 
making an exception, and declaring that " in the vast majority 
of cases .... whatever is prejudicial or beneficial to 
the organism as a whole, is generally painful or pleasurable 
respectively." But in nature the exceptions seem to reach as 
wide as the rule. Nearly all animals will injure themselves by 
over-eating when opportunity is afforded them; the pleasures of 
combat urge many of them to their destruction; in a drought,, 
many animals, when they at last reach the water, will drink 
themselves to death, if permitted. Pleasure and pain. then,, 
as motives of the physical life, need to be overruled by cir- 
cumstances or by reason. What Providence does objectively 
for the brutes, by means of their "environment," is done for 
man subjectively, by giving him reason and foresight. The. 
formula must recognize this before it can be made universal. 

There is a valuable suggestion in Aristotle's definition, that 
pleasure is action; it is the normal result of proper activity. 
Lotze has attained a better formula than Spencer's, by reach- 
ing it from this side. "Feeling is the consequence and signal 
of coincidence or conflict between the excitations produced in 



218 The Feelings. 

us and the conditions of our permanent well-being. Pleasure 
would then follow every use of our natural powers within the 
limits of these conditions, and 'unpleasure' every one in con- 
flict with those conditions." (Dictate, Psychologie §47.) Here 
the necessary limitations are supplied, and this formula has 
the advantage that it is easily carried up into the higher regions 
of the intellect, and also into the domain of Ethics, where we 
learn that the highest good results "from the activity of the 
highest powers in a right relation to their highest object." 
(Hopkins, Moral Science, 53.) 

Yet we need to notice that the formula is a general one, and 
that pleasure and pain cannot always be antithetically balanced 
against each other. Some pains are acute, and some are dull* 
some pleasures are intense, and others are massive. But there 
is no necessary opposition or correspondence in their respect- 
ive origins or natures, answering to this rdativeness of terms. 
Acute pain is always the signal of destruction of tissue. If 
our intensest pleasures were exactly the opposite of acute pains, 
those activities of the system which are constructive or recon- 
structive would be the most delightful, and the circulation of the 
blood, respiration and digestion, would be our greatest physical 
pleasures. What they really result in, is that massive kind of 
pleasure called "feeling well," or "exhilaration," and the like, 
opposed rather to the pains and discomforts of fatigue, dys- 
pepsia, ennui, depression. The converse is also true, tha; 
derangement of these functions, especially digestion, produces, 
not acute pain, but a general tone of feeling, accompanying all 
one's experience. Thus biliousness „ produces despondency, 
dullness, a massive discomfort, pervading the body and affect- 
ing the mind. That eccentric and brilliant Divine, Dr. S. H. 
Cox, declared that he never had known a triumphant Christian 
death-bed, in a case where the disease was below the diaphragm. 



Pleasure and Pain. 219 

FEELINGS OF THE DIFFERENT SENSES. 

A plain distinction exists between the feelings connected 
with the more ignoble senses, taste, smell, touch, muscular 
sensation, and sense of temperature, — and, on the other hand, 
those connected with the senses of hearing and sight. The 
difference, however, is no greater here than with regard to the 
intellectual content of sensations. We found that smell, taste, 
and hearing give no knowledge of the external world; that 
smell, taste, muscular sensation and sense of temperature can- 
not be " inlets to the soul " in the same way as sight, hearing, 
and touch. They cannot convey abstract thought, or fur- 
nish means of communication between minds. • 

Moreover, since the senses of sight and hearing are those 
through ' which the intellect is chiefly exercised, in the use of 
language, the intellect necessarily enters more quickly and per- 
fectly into connection with their objects than with those of the 
other senses. Again, the direct pleasures of these senses are 
less intense and absorbing, more refined, and more dependent 
on culture and attention than those of the other senses. 
"Every single fibre of the optic and auditory nerves seems 
capable of differential stimulation, and yields us a distinct and 
separate impression. Hence, while stimulation and fatigue 
usually extend over large tracts of the olfactory and gustatory 
systems, every single fibre of the optic and auditory apparatus, 
with its connected center, is probably capable of separate 
pleasure and separate fatigue." The nerves of sight and hear- 
ing are also capable of far more rapid alternations than the 
others. " There is reason to believe that the optic fibres and 
terminal organs are repaired, in ordinary cases, seventeen times 
per second, and those of the auditory nerves thirty-three times 
per second." (Grant Allen, op. cit., 97-99.) 



22o The Feelings. 

IMPORTANCE OF SIGHT. 

These facts make clear the intellectual pre-eminence of the 
sense of Sight, show that the intellect pervades and interpene- 
trates our sensations of sight in a peculiar way. And this 
serves to confirm the view that the sense of beauty, which is 
almost exclusively connected with the sense of Sight, is en- 
tirely an intellectual perception and pleasure. Even Granf 
Allen is obliged to admit that " minute intellectual discrimina 
tion is one of the marks that differentiate the Esthetic Feel 
ings from the other pleasures and pains." 

There may be particular experiences in which it is difficul 
to say whether sense-pleasure or intellectual pleasure predom- 
inates. But this gives no confirmation to the theory that all 
our feelings are only combinations or developments of the 
feelings of sense. The feelings called social, intellectual, sym- 
pathetic, aesthetic, spiritual, cannot be thus dissolved away. 
We speak of the pain caused by hearing of a friend's death,, 
and also of the pain of a cut or burnt finger. But it is plain 
that, although both experiences can be brought under our 
general formula, as being both depressing and injurious to life 
in the large sense, and hence properly called by the same 
name of pain, yet they have nothing in common in their own 
nature. Their resemblance consists in the fact that one sus- 
tains somewhat the same relation to the social and mental life 
that the other does to the physical life. We speak of the 
pleasures of eating, of hearing music, of seeing pictures and 
landscapes, of reading about noble deeds, of doing good, of 
loving holiness; but the general resemblance among them, by 
which we class them all as pleasures, is far less characteristic 
rhan their specific differences. 

The pain of hunger, the pain of a burn, and the pain of 
neuralgia, have plainly a very close resemblance. The disa- 



Pleasure and Pain. 221 

greeable feeling of a bad taste or smell, of a discordant sound, 

of a coarse combination of colors, have an evident resemblance 

to the positive pains just mentioned. But the feeling one has 

on witnessing cruelty, or on being cheated, or on learning of a 

friend's death, or on seeing one's house in flames, all these 

closely resemble one another, but differ widely from the other 

classes of feelings, and can never be derived or compounded 

out of them. 

DIGRESSION ON MUSIC. 

We have given the pleasures of sight far higher rank than 
those of hearing. But the art of music, dependent on the 
sense of hearing, has attained such a wonderful development 
in recent times that we take brief notice of it here, as a transi- 
tional topic between sense-pleasure and ^Esthetics. 

The feeling of music is by some called an emotion; but it 
does not come within the definition of emotion proper. Nearly 
all the peculiar effects of music are due to association. An 
exile in a foreign land weeps on hearing his national air, though 
it be the liveliest of tunes. The plaintive wailing of the bag- 
pipes excites the Scot to martial ardor and courage. "Yankee 
Doodle," though a British burlesque, arouses no anger, and 
though an utterly trivial air, excites no contempt, in any 
American bosom, for long association has made it stir- 
ring and patriotic. "America" excites our patriotic ardor 
now, though originally a Jacobite air, composed to honor 
the exiled tyrant James. "The Marseillaise" means noth- 
ing to us, to the Frenchman it is frenzy. When " pro- 
gram-music " is played, those of the audience who have the 
"program" exhibit feeling at the right places, the others make 
mistakes. The fact seems to be, — Music excites the nerves in 
ways having some general correspondence with its style and 
rhythm. A lively tune, by its rapid alternations and transi- 
tions, causes a kind of tumult of the nerves, which is associated 
15 



222 The Feelings. 

with joy. A slow tune is of course calming in its effects. The 
piercing note of a fife must of course affect the nerves differ- 
ently from the low notes of the pipe-organ. But beyond these 
things the entire effect of music on the feelings is due to asso- 
ciation and culture. 

The simple pleasure of music, apart from specific feelings 
excited by it, depends largly on rhythm, which is also impor- 
tant in poetry, dancing, military evolutions, gymnastic exercises, 
and other sources of pleasure. 

Rhythm gives alternation of stimulation, and hence short in- 
tervals of rest and repair to the organs involved, and also satis- 
fies expectation on each recurrence. Hence when the move- 
ment is once set up, its mere continuance causes pleasure, and 
its alteration or. sudden discontinuance gives a slight shock, like 
a " false step " in dancing or marching. 

There is here also, evidently, an intellectual element, above 
mere sense-stimulation, not unlike that involved in contrast of 
colors. The same principle is, moreover, involved in the pleasure 
given by single musical tones. Such a tone is pleasant because 
its sound-waves recur with regularity, and is still more pleas- 
ant when compounded of several tones or overtones, giving reg- 
ularly recurring " beats " or interferences of air- waves, as ex- 
plained by the science of acoustics. But a single tone, how- 
ever sweet, soon becomes tedious and unpleasant, because so 
few nerves are involved that all soon become wearied. And 
the higher intellectual element of contrast, comparison, and 
unity, is needed to constitute beauty in any true sense of the 
word. 



ESTHETICS. 



The science of Esthetics treats of the nature of beauty, 

the principles of the fine arts, of criticism, and of taste. The 

word is derived from a Greek word meaning perception, and 

so would be expected to apply to all perception through the 

senses. Kant did so use it in his "Critik of Pure Reason," 

where "Transcendental Esthetic" means the metaphysics of 

sensation. The word is hence in some respects an unfortunate 

one. Some recent writers have undertaken to reduce it to its 

ancient or its Kantian meaning, as a help toward reducing all 

feeling to sense-feeling. Thus Mr. Grant Allen, in his work 

already quoted, treats at full length of pleasure and pain, and 

endeavors to show "the purely physical origin of the sense of 

beauty." 

We must, then, guard against supposing that the term, 

though a convenient one, gives in itself any explanation of the 
feeling or idea of beauty. We are obliged, indeed, after all, 
to use the phrase Idea of Beauty to denote the metaphysical 
side of this mental product. 

The word Beauty refers usually to Sight alone among the 
senses. The objects of the other senses are seldom called 
beautiful, and then generally in a figurative way. Even in 
music, some of the most descriptive words applied to it as 
beautiful are borrowed from sight, such as color; light and 
shade. Comparatively few natural sounds can be called even 
agreeable, while a vast variety of natural objects and scenes 
are beautiful to the eye. 



224 The Feelings. 

beauty not sense-pleasure. 

What, then, is the difference between mere sense-pleasure, oc- 
casioned by color, for instance, and the feeling of beaut) 7 ? 
We hold that the difference lies in the activity of the intellect, 
and that in proportion as the intellect is active in relation to 
beauty, the feeling is elevated and pure. 

The lower animals can enjoy pleasure of the senses, even of 
the sense of sight. Bright and varied colors are agreeable to 
them. But they have no' " Idea of Beauty," no Taste, no 
perception of ugliness, no feeling of beauty. 

The intellectual activity connected with beauty may be said 
to begin very low down in the scale, with the element of at- 
tention. Beauty is not obtrusive upon the very senses, does 
not force itself on our attention, like a cannon shot or a 
strong odor. We are obliged to look for it; we have to give it 
our best attention, or we- cannot recognize it, and then it does 
not exist for us. 

A higher intellectual element, essential to real perception of 
beauty, is found in the power of discrimination. "The vulgar 
are pleased by great masses of color, 'especially red, orange, 
and purple, which give their coarse nervous organizations the 
requisite stimulus: the refined, with nerves of less caliber but 
greater discriminativeness, require delicate combinations of 
complementaries, and prefer neutral tints to the glare of pri- 
mary hues. Children and savages love to dress in all the 
colors of the rainbow." (Grant Allen.) 

The eyes' are restless organs; they perpetually adjust them- 
selves in various ways to their objects; they are the constant 
instrument of intellectual discrimination; they minister con- 
stantly to this intellectual function, which affords a peculiar in- 
tellectual delight. Mr. Allen himself seems virtually to admit 
that this is the true explanation, for he says that in the per- 



Esthetics. 225 

ception of beauty or ugliness, "as the emotional element 
[sense-feeling], is weak, it [beauty or ugliness] is mainly cog- 
nized only as an intellectual discrimination." (39-) 

But there are still higher intellectual elements in beauty. 
Order, proportion, symmetry, fitness, are called beautiful, and 
enter, indeed, into nearly all beauty; yet they are purely intel- 
lectual relations, not to be attained by sensations, unless the 
mind be present to compare and abstract those sensations. 
Again, a geometrical demonstration is often, and correctly, 
called beautiful, and so may be an argument, legal or metaphys- 
ical, a scientific experiment, a mechanical invention. 

There is also an element which may fairly be called ethical, 
sometimes described as " disinterestedness." A beautiful ob- 
ject may be enjoyed by many persons; there can be no monop- 
oly of it. Lotze makes this the peculiar mark of aesthetic 
feeling, that it is "universal," it is not exhausted by one indi- 
vidual. "The objects of Fine Art, and all objects called aes- 
thetic, are exempt from the fatal taint of rivalry and contest 
attaching to other agreeables; they draw men together in 
mutual sympathy; and are thus eminently social and humaniz- 
ing. A picture or a statue can be seen by millions; a great 
poem reaches all that understand its language; a fine melody 
may spread pleasure over the habitable globe." (Bain.) 

BEAUTY INTELLECTUAL. 

But how is beauty explained or accounted for by referring" it 
to the intellect? We are here thrown back upon the ultimate 
law or formula that pleasure or happiness results from the 
proper activity of our powers in a right relation to their ap- 
propriate objects. It is the- natural function and perpetual ef- 
fort of intellect to discover unity, to reconcile contradictions, 
to find resemblances, to classify under wider genera, to reduce 
all things to a few conceptions or to one; such is the bound- 
less task which the intellect sets itself. 



226 The Feelings. 

Natural science is the classification of things, reducing them 
to ever fewer and wider classes, and attempting to show their 
relation to a few forms or to one. Physical science is the at- 
tempt to show that all forces are but forms of one force, and 
all kinds of matter but a few original sorts or one sort. Mathe- 
matical science is the attempt to provide an organon by which 
this can be done, or, what is the same thing, to unravel the 
necessary judgments contained in the universe, and show them 
related in a system. 

Success, or apparent success, in any part of this endless 
task gives intellectual pleasure. A reconciliation between two 
apparent opposites, a discovery of unknown resemblances, a 
new discrimination, which always involves resemblance, is de- 
lightful. 

When the matters thought of are trifling, as the sound of 
two similar words, in the pun, we call it a kind of wit, and are 
excited to a "sudden glory of laughter." 

When the objects are of different rank, as, one physical and 
the other moral, we have figures of speech, similes and meta- 
phors, always accounted beautiful since the dawn of poetry. 
When Homer compares a warrior to a lion or a torrent, it is 
the endless striving and passion of the mind for unity which 
makes the simile beautiful. And if, in our day, these compari- 
sons have come to seem trivial, it is because so many more im- 
portant and more perfect unifications have been made possible 
in the progress of knowledge. 

Newton's identification of attraction in the solar system 
with gravity on the earth, is always considered one of the most 
beautiful of demonstrations, even by those who have no knowl- 
edge of it as a mathematical process. The more recent as- 
similation of the stars and the earth, by means of the spectro- 
scope, will always be deemed one of the most beautiful of all 
discoveries. 



^Esthetics. 227- 

confirmations. 

1. It is a strong confirmation of this theory that it explains 
many difficulties which have excited much discussion. One 
such point is the similarity of beauty and some kinds of wit, 
already alluded to, which has been puzzling to some. The 
theory helps also to explain the beauty of symmetry, the 
having two or more sides alike; although the pleasure which 
this gives is partly accounted for, no doubt, by association, 
since the human body and nearly all the higher animals, many 
leaves, etc., are symmetrical. It explains, too, why an ad- 
mirer or critic of beauty seems to feel within him an ideal, a 
standard, which nevertheless is not a definite pattern, but an 
idea of perfection in general, which can never be absolutely 
realized. Imitation, either of a pattern or an ideal, in itself 
gives us pleasure. If it is trivial we laugh at it; if it is serious 
and worthy we call it beautiful; if too long continued it is 
fatiguing. Imitation evidently exercises in a high degree the 
comparing and reconciling activity of the mind. This theory 
seems also to explain why aesthetic feeling is felt to be unselfish 
and universal. When we find in any object, or interpret into 
it, any congruity, or attempt at or tendency toward such con- 
gruity, with this necessary and universal action of the intellect, 
we receive aesthetic pleasure, and say "here is something 
beautiful." 

2. Another confirmation of this view is, that it not only rises 
naturally from sense-phenomena to the grandest and widest 
conceptions, finding beauty everywhere, but it can advance 
higher still, to conduct, to moral relations. A beautiful char- 
acter is one which, among opposing temptations, preserves a 
rational consistency, a unity wrought out of variety. "We ex- 
perience the sense of beauty in witnessing the conformity of 
conduct to a high standard of moral excellence, which excites 



■228 The Feelings. 

in our minds a pleasure of the same order as that which we 
derive from the contemplation of a noble work of Art." (Dr. 
Carpenter.) 

3. A third confirmation of this theory is that it explains the 
phenomenon called Ugliness. This, though called the opposite 
of beauty, does not excite a painful feeling, unless it be in ab- 
normally sensitive natures. Ugliness may sometimes be the 
expression of hateful moral qualities, and to this point we shall 
return. But to the % intellect it is the inharmonious, the asym- 
metrical, that which cannot be reduced to unity, that which re- 
sists the efforts of the mind. It gives the intellect a shock of 
failure, of inability to accomplish its end, to realize itself, — a 
feeling of disappointed effort. And, since beauty is so general 
in nature and art, its absence gives a shock of disappointed ex- 
pectation. But no such contrast can be traced between beauty 
and ugliness as between pleasure and pain, for ugliness is only 
lack of beauty, while pain is a positive experience of destruc- 
tive action. 

4. A fourth remark upon this view is that it takes up into 
itself many partial views which have proved, each by itself, 
quite inadequate. Such are the views that beauty consists in 
unity, in variety, in order, in fitness or adaptation, in usefulness, 
in harmony, in rhythm, in contrast, in curved lines, in expression, 
in social convention. Most writers have assumed that there 
must be some one principle or quality in which beauty con- 
sists; that every beautiful object must be beautiful for the same 
reason. An amazing number of theories have been con- 
structed, in the attempt to discover and prove such a principle. 
From Plato to Ruskin, the ablest and most ingenious writers 
have labored with this problem, but hardly any two have agreed. 
Their views maybe found in special treatises; we cannot make 
room for them here. 

If our view be correct, nearly all these theories contained a 



^Esthetics. 229 

part of the truth, while each committed a fundamental error 
in seeking for a single quality as the cause of all beauty. ^Es- 
thetic feeling is rather an accompaniment of all felicitous and 
successful operation of the mental powers. Beauty is therefore in 
the mind, just as color is; the quality in the object is something 
which evokes the creative activity of the intellect, from which 
results aesthetic pleasure. A large number of such qualities 
may thus awaken the intellect, — order, symmetry, fitness, rhythm, 
expression, etc.; these qualities may be moral, mental, or con- 
ventional; these objects may be abstract relations, mathematical 
or metaphysical. " Yet even those writers," says Dr. T. Brown 
" who would be astonished, if we were to regard them as capa- 
ble of any faith in the universal a parte rei, believe in uni- 
versal beauty a parte rei, and inquire what it is which consti- 
tutes the beautiful, very much as the scholastic logicians in- 
quired into the real essence of the universal." (II, 60.) 

CONCLUSION. 

We think it is evident from these higher discussions, with- 
out more formal proof, that beauty is something beyond mere 
sense-feeling, and that no theory of it as a combination of 
such feelings, can answer the great philosophical questions 
which arise concerning it. There is to be accounted for, not 
only a feeling, but also an idea; not merely a correspondence 
between the physical world and the nervous system, but a cor- 
respondence between the principles of the world and those of 
the intellect. 

Yet similar concessions and exceptions remain to be made, 
with those which we made when speaking of Space and Time. 
Undoubtedly much of our perception of beauty is due to as- 
sociation of ideas, habit, culture, social convention, individual 
preference, — out of all which a vast structure of aesthetic Taste 
is reared. And this accounts for the diversity of taste among 



230 The Feelings. 

different individuals, nations, periods, and stages of civiliza- 
tion. " A landscape which bears a resemblance to the scene 
of our early youth, cannot fail to be felt as more beautiful by us 
than by others. . The countenance of one who is dear to us 
sheds a charm over similar features. An author whose work 
we have read at an early period with delight, continues for- 
ever to exercise no inconsiderable dominion over our general 
taste." (Dr. T. Brown.) 

Our objective knowledge of beauty in nature and art, in 
thought and character, is of course derived from experience. 
All our lives we are imbibing knowledge of the beautiful, form- 
ing our taste, learning what is considered beautiful and what 
ugly. But this experience itself could not exist without a pe- 
culiar capacity in the mind, beyond mere perception, to cog- 
nize objects under such a relation. When discussing Space, 
we found reason to believe, that although an objective knowl- 
edge of space-relations is undoubtedly derived from experience, 
yet that knowledge could not be accounted for without suppos- 
ing some necessity of the mind to cognize external objects 
under those relations. So in this case, the objective knowl- 
edge of beauty through experience cannot be accounted for 
without a similar presupposition. If we call the one the Idea 
of Space, we may well call the other the Idea of Beauty. 

EXPRESSION. 

It is held by some that beauty consists largely in the ex- 
pression of character and moral worth. Kant, especially, 
made the highest beauty consist in symbolizing moral qualities. 
But beauty and expression are two different things. Fine 
qualities of character, disposition, manners, etc., are beautiful 
in themselves, and so, in a certain sense, the expression of 
them is beautiful. Moral and spiritual beauty may properly 
be called higher in degree than physical beauty, but this does 



Emotion. 231 

not prove that the latter has its existence in symbolizing the 
former. The following considerations seem to us sufficient to 
prove the complete separation of the two things. 

1. Many of the most beautiful human beings are depraved 
in character and weak in intellect. 

2. Much of this expressiveness is conventional, and founded 
on association. 

3. At best, the observer can only recognize those qualities 
which he himself possesses, or is capable, through experience, 
of appreciating. A coarse savage is necessarily incapable of 
perceiving refined qualities of character, and hence of finding 
beauty in their expression. Beauty can symbolize the highest 
moral qualities only to him who has himself some share of the 
same qualities. 



EMOTION. 



We now return from the excursion in which we followed out 
the natural suggestion of the fundamental elements of Pleas- 
ure and Pain, and begin the discussion of the specific kinds of 
feeling. According to our plan, we begin with that kind which 
has most to do with our physical organism. 

The term Emotion is often used in a vague and wide sense, 
and even applied to all the Feelings. But its proper as well 
as etymological meaning is restricted to those feelings which 
presuppose previous sensation or representation, being excited 
by ideas of pleasure or pain in the mind, and which "manifest 
their existence and character by some sensible effect upon the 
body." (Fleming, Vocab. of Phil.) In violent emotion the 
disturbance or tumult of the nervous system is the most prom- 



232 The Feelings. 

inent fact, which is well expressed by the old term, "com- 
motion." 

The expression of Emotion by bodily movements is due to 
an excess of nervous excitement, which, unable to be dis- 
charged in other ways, overflows upon the motor nerves, and 
produces involuntary movements. 

REFLEX MOVEMENTS. 

Indeed, the bodily movements accompanying emotion are a 
development of that class of activities called automatic or re- 
flex. For example, tickling the sole of the foot of a sleeping 
person causes the foot to be drawn up, without sensation or 
volition. In the case of a person whose lower limbs are para- 
lyzed, similar irritation may produce violent convulsions, 
though the patient cannot move his feet voluntarily, and has 
no sensation in them. So, a very slight irritation of the end 
of a nerve, by a sliver of glass or a filing of iron, has been 
known to cause convulsions out of all proportion with the im- 
portance of the cause; " and a trifling injury may in this way 
end in tetanus or lock-jaw." "Strychnia so affects the nerves 
that, on the occasion of the slightest stimulus, they react in 
convulsive activity." (Maudsley.) 

In a similar way, when an idea is fitted to produce emotion, 
it may result in bodily movements having no relation to the 
importance of the idea, but to the peculiar condition of the 
mind and nervous system, and various mental and physical 
relations. "To all appearances a violent emotion may act 
sometimes in the same way as a strong physical shock to the 
nervous system, for it may produce in some instances convul- 
sions, fainting, loss of sensation, paralysis of movement, deaf- 
ness; exactly the effects which a strong electric shock may 
produce." (Maudsley, Physiology of Mind, 350.) 

A piece of news which is of no importance to one person, 



Emotion. 233 

may give a severe shock to another, and this, in a person of 
particularly sensitive organization, may find expression in 
screams, contortions, or even suspension of the action of the 
heart. A " ticklish " child laughs when the idea of tickling is 
excited by pointing the finger at him. The mere recollection 
of a funny scene often produces laughter, and the memory of 
a danger escaped often causes a shudder or a start. 

SPENCER AND DARWIN. 

The ordinary expression of emotion, however, is by the 
muscles of the face. Physiologists explain this by a " wave of 
nervous energy" contracting many muscles at once, a "dif- 
fused nervous discharge" which, says Mr. Herbert Spencer, ex- 
cites, first, "the small muscles attached to the easily moved 
parts, such as the face, afterwards more numerous and larger 
muscles moving heavier parts, and eventually the whole body." 
Mr. Darwin investigated the expression of emotion, both in 
man and in the lower animals, with his accustomed thorough- 
ness and ability. We cannot make room for an extended 
view of his theories, and anything briefer could not do them 
justice. 

Emotion is as fatiguing to the system as voluntary exertion. 
Fear, grief, sorrow, anger, exhaust the vital force, the nerv- 
ous energy. And, if the expression of emotion is suppressed, 
it may exert a depressing influence equivalent to the shock of 
a violent emotion. Those who conceal their griefs and show 
no outward signs of sorrow, are more likely to " die of a 
broken heart" than those who express emotion by violent 
gestures and loud cries. 

The physical expression of emotion is by some considered 
an essential part of it, without which it is called " suppressed 
emotion." In ordinary language, however, the emotion and 
its expression are quite different things, the one a feeling, a 



234 The Feelings. 

psychical experience, the other a movement, a physical ex- 
perience. Consciousness testifies that feelings usually ex- 
pressed in this way may be entirely suppressed, so far as 
physical movement goes, and yet the experience, of fear, 
anger, or other feeling, continues in the mind. 

EXPERIMENTS AND THEORIES. 

This remarkable distinctness and yet connection between 
emotion and its expression has led to some curious theories 
and experiments. It is said to be a common experience of 
actors, that when they imitate the conventional expression of 
any emotion, they experience the emotion itself, the feeling in 
the mind. Edmund Burke said that he had successfully tried 
the experiment. " I have remarked that on mimicking the 
looks and gestures of angry, or placid, or frightened, or daring 
men, I have involuntarily found my mind turned to that pas- 
sion whose appearance I endeavored to imitate." A theory 
has hence been formed that the bodily changes come first", and 
the feeling is a result of them, that emotion is " a feeling of 
the bodily changes as they occur." 

"What kind of an emotion of fear would be left," says 
Professor W. James, " if the feelings neither of quickened 
heart-beats nor of shallow breathing, neither of trembling lips 
nor of weakened limbs, neither of goose-flesh nor of visceral 
stirrings were present, it is quite impossible to think. Can 
any one fancy the state of rage and picture no ebullition of it 
in the chest, no flushing of the face, no dilatation of the nos- 
trils, no clenching of the teeth, no impulse to vigorous action, 
but in their stead limp muscles, calm breathing, and a placid 
face ? " " In rage, it is notorious how we ' work ourselves up ' 
to a climax by repeated outbreaks of expression. Refuse to 
express a passion, and it dies. Count ten before venting your 
anger, and its occasion seems ridiculous." (" Mind" for April, 
1884.) 



Emotion. 235 

However useful the practical suggestions which can be 
drawn from this view, it is contradicted by observation and by 
consciousness. "The motor expressions of the emotions are 
really the movements which would be manifested in greater 

degree if the emotions were realized in action 

In the desire for revenge [rather in rage], the gratification of 
which is to injure the offender, the natural weapons of offence 
are put in action, animals ejecting their poison, thrusting out 
their stings, attempting to tear, bite, or kick, and man, clench- 
ing his fist, stamping his feet and gnashing his teeth, as he 
would do if he were actually taking his revenge. In terror, 
the satisfaction of which is the averting of a great impending 
danger, the struggles for preservation are seen in the starting 
back, the shrinking, the sudden standing still, and the open 
mouth by which a deep inspiration is taken in order to pre- 
pare for exertion." (Maudsley, Physiology of Mind, 379.) 

Such facts show that the expression of emotion, though 
nearly always associated with the mental experience, is a con- 
sequence, and not, in normal cases, an antecedent of it. And 
evidently, in any experiment like that of Burke, the idea of the 
particular emotion which is to be produced must already be in 
the mind at the beginning of the experiment. It is true that 
hypnotized persons or somnambulists, when put into the posture 
of prayer, for example, or of fighting, sometimes display the 
appropriate feeling in their words and actions. But it is quite 
possible in such cases that the posture suggests the feeling by 
association of ideas, instead of causing the emotion directly. 

We are often directly conscious that the mental part of an 
emotion comes first. For example, when a joke is heard we 
know that we do not experience the feeling of the ludicrous 
because the joke causes the peculiar muscular convulsions 
called laughter. Or, if I am afraid of a snarling dog, I know 
that my fear is not the consequence of running away, but of 



236 The Feelings. 

the idea of a bite, and the conception of pain, associated in my 
mind with a snarl, and this psychical experience leads to the 
physical movements. 

Emotion varies according to the nature of the exciting idea, 
and according to the circumstances and character of the person 
experiencing it. Each such variation might be called a class 
of Emotions. Obviously, if all the ways in which different 
ideas can arouse feelings that manifest themselves in expression 
or gesture should be enumerated, the list would be a long one. 
We shall discuss only the principal kinds of Emotion, but in 
doing so we shall find that many others, usually distinguished, 
can be grouped around these. We begin with Fear because it 
has the best known and most strongly marked physical effects. 

FEAR. 

The Emotion of Fear is aroused by the idea of pain as about 
to affect one. Its typical expression is seen in a cur, which, 
at sight of a whip in his master's hand, puts his tail between 
his legs, and crouches whining to the ground. In man its 
bodily effects are progressive in intensity. Turning pale and 
trembling are among the first, then weakening at the knees, 
cold sweat, shortness of breath, goose-flesh, and motions of the 
viscera, culminating in complete paralysis, so that the victim 
is unable either to run away or defend himself. In this ex- 
treme form the emotion is called Terror, and may be found 
also in the lower animals, where the "charming " of birds by 
serpents is an instance of fear-paralysis. 

An element of pain obviously runs through the experience 
called Fear, in all its forms, and this pain is sometimes almost 
or quite equal to the pain which is dreaded. Yet this pain has 
a preservative function, as inciting attempts to escape. 

What we have thus far said applies to fear of physical injury. 
Apprehension of social or mental or remotely future ills, is 



Emotion. 237 

rightly classed under Fear, though the expression in the face is 
far less strongly marked, and is called Melancholy, or Anxiety. 
Various other terms are employed to denote different kinds of 
fear, as modified by circumstances or by combination with 
other feelings, such as, Anxiety, Terror, Dread, Suspicion, Awe, 
Distrust, Timidity, Diffidence, etc. Detailed distinctions be- 
tween them would be aside from our present purpose. 

ANGER. 

Defensive Emotion, in its most usual form, is called Anger. 
It is aroused by the smart of actual pain, or by the apprehen- 
sion of pain as about to be inflicted by some agent. . Obviously 
the same idea of future pain may excite either fear or anger, 
according as the " noxious agent " is overwhelming in power, 
or not, and according to the power, character, and feelings of 
the person experiencing the emotion. The specific difference 
between fear and anger is, that in the former, attention is fixed 
upon the pain, in the latter upon the agent that causes the 
pain. While fear prompts to escape, anger prompts to de- 
fense, at first, and afterwards to retaliation. The expression of 
anger is in general the opposite of that of fear; the latter is de- 
pressing in its effect on the organism, the former exciting. 
Many animals, of various species, erect their hair or feathers 
and arch their backs or expand their wings, when angry, so as 
to appear larger and more terrible to their enemies. (See 
Darwin.) 

The signs of anger are a general nervous excitement, a 

flushed face, labored respiration, trembling, change of voice, 

etc. If the excitement proceeds without restraint, it usually 

terminates in violent movements, which relieve the nervous 

tension. " The gestures of a man in this state," says Darwin, 

"usually differ from the purposeless writhings and struggles of 

one suffering from an agony of pain; for they represent more 

or less plainly the act of striking or fighting with an enemy." 
16 



238 The Feelings. 

The first shock of anger is painful and exhausting, but the 
accomplishment of its purpose gives pleasure; the immediate 
discharge gives a kind of relief; and the averting of danger 
gives relief from fear, as well as the pleasure of self-assertion; 
the prevention of future attacks, through destruction of the 
" noxious agent " or fear excited in him, also yields satisfaction. 

The extreme form of anger is called Rage, or Frenzy. When 
the immediate manifestation is suppressed or unsuccessful, yet 
the feelings continue excited toward the same object, this 
lengthened feeling is called Hatred, and its gratification is 
called Revenge. Here emotion is no longer pure, but pur- 
posive actions are planned and performed for the gratification 
of malevolent feeling. Accordingly, Hatred is usually treated 
of as an Affection, the opposite of Love. But as love, in its 
lowest form, is the expression of physical relations, so hatred 
begins with anger. Many names are given to different kinds 
and degrees of defensive feeling, in various relations of life, 
and in various combinations with other feelings, as, — Animos- 
ity, Antipathy, Hostility, Hatred, Aversion, Abhorrence, Dis- 
like, Resentment, Malice, Spite, Vindictiveness, etc. 

GRIEF AND JOY. 

These approach more nearly than any other emotions to 
pure pleasure and pain. Grief and Joy are feelings excited by 
important events affecting one's self; when we grieve or rejoice 
with others, this is called sympathetic emotion. We experience 
grief for the loss of a friend, a child, a fortune, — not for a 
stranger or a penny; it usually implies frustrated or disap- 
pointed affection for a sentient object. A good illustration 
of grief is a dog at his master's grave, howling and refusing 
food. David's lament for Absalom is a remarkable literary 
expression of grief. 

Joy is typically expressed by the dog that wags his tail and 
licks his master's hand, and gambols about him. The evolu- 



Emotion. 239 

tionists have not yet clearly explained why a very similar action 
of the tail expresses almost contrary emotions in the lion and 
in the dog. Various degrees of grief, under varying circum- 
stances, are called Melancholy, Regret, Sorrow, Distress, 
Affliction, Woe, Misery, Tribulation, etc. Many different 
names are also applied to varieties of joy. 

EXPECTATION, WONDER, ETC, 

Several other feelings might well be described as Emotions, 
but are for the most part complicated with other mental expe- 
riences, and of little psychological importance. We give an 
example or two of the way in which they can easily be analyzed. 

Expectation has a characteristic bodily expression, well illus- 
trated in a cat watching for a mouse. It is the feeling aroused 
by some event as about to happen. But evidently it is in itself 
only an intense attention. The nerve-force is loaded up, as it 
were, and waiting for a definite perception to pull the trigger 
and discharge its force in activity. If the expected event is 
disagreeable, as when the mouse is expecting the cat, appre- 
hension, or fear, is the name usually given to this feeling. 
When the object is remote and agreeable, and a mental or so- 
cial rather . than a physical event, the feeling is called hope. 
On Expectant-Attention see page 66. 

Wonder is the vague pleasure associated with that which is 
new and great, extraordinary, and not well understood. A low 
form of this feeling, common to some of the lower animals, is 
calted curiosity. It also receives other names when compli- 
cated with other experiences, as, — Astonishment, Surprise, 
Admiration, Awe, Amazement, Marveling, etc. The bodily 
expressions of all these are very much alike, — an erect posture, 
eyes distended, mouth generally open. Shakespeare says, " I 
saw a smith stand with open mouth, swallowing a tailor's news." 
Mr. Darwin accounts for the open mouth by unconscious 
preparation for great exertion by a full inspiration. 



240 The Feelings. 

Wonder lies at the basis of natural religious feeling. Prim- 
itive man, beginning to reflect on the vast forces and inexpli- 
cable phenomena of nature, is at first overwhelmed with wonder, 
then seeks a cause for these things, and readily turns toward a 
supernatural cause. 

LAUGHTER AND THE LUDICROUS. 

Laughter is a peculiar convulsion, affecting chiefly the mus- 
cles of respiration; but sometimes spreading to all parts of the 
body. It may have a purely physical cause, as hysteria, or 
tickling. According to Mr. Herbert Spencer, laughter is the 
expression of a general excitement of the nerves. "An over- 
flow of nerve-force, undirected by any motive, will take first 
the most habitual routes. It is through the organs of speech 
that feeling passes into movement with the greatest frequency. 
. . . . Hence certain muscles round the mouth, small and 
easy to move, are the first to contract under pleasurable emo- 
tion." The respiratory muscles are also in constant use, and 
so emotion next "convulses not only certain of the articulatory 
and vocal muscles, but also those which expel air from the 
lungs." 

Laughter, it is important to notice, is not necessarily con- 
nected with the Ludicrous. It may arise, besides physical 
irritations, from joy, gladness, any sudden access of mental 
pleasure. The lower animals cannot laugh, though they seem 
to be capable, in some cases, of joining in the merriment of 
their masters. On the other hand, the perception of the 
ludicrous, may or may not excite laughter. 

THE comic. 

The cause of the Emotion of the Ludicrous, or the Comic, 
as a mental feeling, has been the subject of much dispute 
among philosophers, from Aristotle down. As in the case of 
beauty, it has generally been assumed that there must be some 



Emotion. 241 

one objective quality belonging to every comic thing or event. 
Most writers have fixed upon Incongruity as this quality. 

In the celebrated theory of Hobbes, " Laughter is a sudden 
glory, arising from sudden conception of some eminency in 
ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with 
our own formerly." But this misses the point, and confounds 
the laugh or chuckle of coarse self-conceit, with perception of 
the comic. 

Bain says the occasion of the Ludicrous is the degradation 
of some person or interest possessing dignity, and refers the 
pleasure of degrading things thus to the sentiment of Power 
and the release from a state, of constraint. But this is to deny 
and explain away the idea of the comic as completely as did 
Hobbes. Both these explanations depend upon incongruity, 
but do not attempt to explain its comic quality. 

Spencer has proceeded a step further, remarking that the in- 
congruity must be descending, because serious thought or per- 
ception requires more nerve-force than trivial thought, and a 
trivial incident, suddenly intervening, sets free a large part of 
the force which is being expended, so that it finds a way of 
discharge in laughter. This explains the outward explosion of 
laughter in a large class of cases, but it goes no further. For 
a case of descending incongruity may be comic to some per- 
sons and tragic to others. 

Bain's principal illustration of the ludicrous is the case of a 
pompous, finely dressed man, who falls into a muddy ditch. 
Nearly all the spectators of such a scene would laugh, and 
some of them undoubtedly would laugh with a spice of malice, 
of triumph, on account of the victim's pomposity, which 
would seem to them to deserve a fall. Now, suppose that the 
victim were falling over a precipice a thousand feet high ; 
hardly any one, even his bitterest enemy, would be malicious 
enough to laugh. Or suppose it is a helpless little child that 



242 The Feelings. 

falls into the mud, however finely dressed it may be, hardly 
any one would laugh. These incidents would be tragic, not 
comic. Or, in the first example given, the victim's wife and 
daughter, if they were to see him fall into the mud, would be 
far from laughter, would rather be filled with sympathy, pity, 
and helpfulness. Or, the tailor, who had not been paid for 
the fine clothes thus ruined, may be supposed to be filled with 
despair and grief. To these persons the incident is tragic, to 
the others comic. 

We arc now prepared to see that simple incongruity is not a 
sufficient explanation of the comic. Different writers place 
the incongruity at different points, scarcely any two agree, and 
few seem to be aware that the point needing explanation is 
how incongruity can give pleasure. It would seem that incon- 
gruity should give pain, and we find that in tragic scenes it 
does do so ; and we also found, when discussing ^Esthetics, 
that the solution, the reconciliation, of an incongruity, gives 
pleasure, as being a successful exercise of high intellectual 
power. 

When we witness the woes of an CEdipus or a Lear, on the 
stage, the incongruity between their sufferings and their merits 
gives us pain ; we weep that such things can be; we abandon 
ourselves for the moment to the belief that there is no rem- 
edy, no alleviation, that the universe is full of suffering. It is 
an outburst of pessimistic feeling. Shakespeare felt this, and 
made his Hamlet utter it freely. To him the world seems out 
of joint. He is the embodiment of the tragic, pessimistic, 
painful, feeling of incongruity. 

The feeling of the Comic, on the contrary, is an outburst of 
the unconscious optimism of the soul-, in view of incongruities 
which seem trifling, or temporary, or partial, — not eternal, or 
universal. The comic woes of a Davus or a Sganarelle amuse 
us, partly because they are deserved, partly because they hap- 



Emotion. 243 

pen to a degraded person of no importance, and also because 
they are comparatively trifling. The incongruity is reconciled 
by the feeling, while in the perception of beauty it is reconciled 
by the intellect, and in tragedy it is not reconciled at all. If 
the man who falls into the mud is seriously hurt, the specta- 
tors cease laughing and crowd around with apologies and of- 
fers of assistance. 

The perception of the comic will of course vary with the 
character and culture of the person experiencing it. A coarse 
person laughs only at coarse jokes. His merriment is unre- 
strained, and often mixed with malice, even though the victim 
of his joke suffers great pain. A gentleman or lady sees noth- 
ing comic in such a scene, but laughs at a play upon words or 
a witticism, which the coarse man would not even understand. 

It is important to notice that the comic is usually mixed 
with other elements, which few writers are at pains to separate. 
In coarse laughter the element of " glorying " or boasting, the 
self-feeling, on which Hobbes based his whole theory, is usually 
prominent, and a spice of malice is often perceptible. In sar- 
casm, and sneering, and " sardonic grins," there is a dash of 
hatred, plainly visible, and a good deal of self-conceit. It im- 
plies the Carlylean dogma, that nearly all men are fools, ex- 
cept the speaker. 

Humor is the purest expression of the comic; it is sheer in- 
congruity, without an after thought as to the serious nature of 
life. Wit is biting, it lays hold, it has claws; it is on the bor- 
ders of the tragic on one side and the beautiful on the other; 
it has a purpose to accomplish; it often brings congruity out of 
incongruity; it often, in the gayest manner, causes pain. 

It is a curious fact that the ancient Greeks, especially Aristo- 
phanes and Lucian, exploited almost every kind and combina- 
tion of the comic, and left very little for the moderns to in- 
vent in this kind of literature. 



APPETITE. 



Returning from the excursion suggested by the emotion of 
Laughter, and pursuing our usual plan, we begin again with 
the feeling called Appetite. Those physical cravings which 
demand what is necessary for the continuance of the organism, 
are usually called Appetites. They are such as Hunger, Thirst, 
Craving for air, Longing for exercise, Desire to sleep. It is 
usual to add Sexual feeling to the list. These cravings, in 
their primitive, coarse, strictly physical form, belong to the 
organism alone, are common to man and the lower animals, 
and are not properly termed feelings. 

Some recent writers advocate the view that we desire food, 
for example, on account of the pleasure we have in eating it, 
and the satisfaction we feel after having filled ourselves. But we 
hold that this is true only of the developed, cultivated, or artifi- 
cial appetites. The desire of sleep, for instance, is obviously a 
purely physical, involuntary craving. Hunger, too, must be 
an automatic craving on the first occasion in one's life, before 
the plea-sure of eating has been experienced. Moreover, in 
the grossest examples of desire of food, as in swine, we find 
animals eating everything eatable, without distinction, and 
without apparent pleasure. • 

Appetite, in its developed, artificial form, becomes worthy 
the name of Feeling, and important for the social and mental 
fc life. Yet in its utmost refinement it is necessarily a self-regard- 
ing principle, openly based on physical sensations, and ranks 
the lowest among springs of action or motives. 

Appetite may be defined as Desire of # physical pleasure. 



Appetite. 245 

"By repeated indulgence the appetites become more fre- 
quent and imperious in their demands. Strange and artificial 
means are employed to gratify them; and, by the growing 
power of habit, a man may not only become addicted to the 
gross and frequent indulgence of his implanted appetites, but 
may raise up within him a host of factitious wants. . . . 
The effect of Association, too, is strikingly seen in the choice 
and use of articles which are selected to gratify our appetites. 
Different kinds of meat and drink are relished, at different 
periods of life, by different classes of society, and by the inhab- 
itants of different countries. In all this the influence of fash- 
ion and custom is powerfully exhibited." (Fleming, Moral 
Philosophy, 60.) 

Each nation has its favorite dishes, its favorite stimulants, 
and its favorite narcotics. The organism becomes habituated 
to tobacco, opium, alcohol, and other powerful drugs, which 
modify the nutrition of the nervous system, and the craving 
for them becomes a desire for excitement or for relief from de- 
pression and uneasiness. Thus the natural appetite called 
thirst has a monstrous development in the habit of the super- 
fluous and useless or injurious consumption of stimulating 
liquors, ending in the vice of drunkenness. In this develop- 
ment the appetite becomes quite perverted, and the craving is 
for the abnormal state of the nervous system, caused by the 
liquor, not for the liquor itself. Thus also hunger is turned 
into a vice, called gluttony. 

" A life of pleasure " hence means, not merely devotion to 
sense-pleasure, but to all kinds of excitements, gambling, gay 
company, and various distractions; a life excluding the high- 
est pleasures, void of the best feeling. 



DESIRE. 



The term Desire is in universal use in English to denote an 
appetency or craving one step higher than Appetite. Desire is 
to the mind what Appetite is to the body. Both are self-re- 
garding feelings, but, while appetite craves pleasure of the 
senses, desire craves objects which give pleasure, and that, 
usually, of a higher kind. And, while appetite develops into 
love of excitement, desire develops into love of abstract things, 
such as knowledge, power, glory. 

The principle of desire is the pleasure of possession. To 
have a thing for one's own is a pleasure above the gratification 
of appetite, and which is probably not shared by the lower ani- 
mals. In the usual division, the specific kinds of desire are 
feelings having reference to things which can in some sense be 
possessed, such as, Desire of Property, of Power, of Glory, of 
Knowledge, etc. 

It is obvious that a somewhat long list of the Desires could 
be made out by subdividing and enumerating the various ob- 
jects of human longing, such as, desire of continued existence, 
of Society, of Liberty, of Happiness, etc. But, in our view, 
the important objects of desire may be classified under a few 
general heads, and other feelings which receive this name are 
compounded of a variety of experiences. 

Desire of Happiness, for example, should not have a place 
on the list. Happiness is not something which can be pos- 
sessed, but a state, the result of possessing objects of desire. 
Or, if the term, Happiness, be used to denote something which 
can be possessed and desired, then the desire of happiness 



Desire. 247 

must be a generic one, including all the others, and equiva- 
lent to desire at large. 

Desire of Continued Existence, is a term used by President 
Hopkins, in the sense of repugnance to death or suicide. But 
we cannot find here the element of possession, common to 
other desires. Fear of pain and change, with aversion to the 
cessation of pleasure, seem sufficient to account for this feel- 
ing. For it is notorious that when all the pleasures of life are 
withdrawn, existence becomes a burden to many, and love of 
life is not sufficient to deter them from suicide. 

Similarly with the desire of Society. Society is the natural 
state of man, and when thrown out of it by any peculiar cir- 
cumstances he seriously feels the deprivation. But Society is 
the condition which renders possible the exercise of all the 
desires, and which in turn is sustained by their normal activity. 
Thus, although desire is self-regarding, it becomes the instru- 
ment in great degree of moral and social development, and so 
a link between the Appetites and the Affections. 

Without the Desire of Property, for example, in its members, 
Society could hardly exist, certainly not be progressive. Those 
Socialists who endeavor to put a stop to acquisition and ac- 
cumulation by individuals, would, if successful, reduce men to 
a lazy and impotent herd. 

It should be noticed that in connection with the Will, the 
term Desire has a different and wider meaning. 

We shall now describe briefly the most important kinds of 
Desire. 

DESIRE OF PROPERTY AND POWER. 

Desire of property is not, as some writers say, a longing for 
the objects which will gratify our sense-feelings. That would 
be only Appetite controlled by Intellect. The Desire of 
Property seeks the gratification of the sense of possession, 



248 The Feelings. 

which is a mental pleasure depending on the Natural Affection 
of Self-love. This desire is hence quite different from the de- 
sire which an animal has to catch game in order to eat it, 
though some writers confound the two. Specific objects are 
desired because they give pleasure in this way, by being pos- 
sessed. To desire them for the sake of sense-pleasure is de- 
veloped appetite. 

The Desire of Property is thus very slightly distinguished 
from the Desire of Power. The former is power over things, 
the latter is property in persons, or power over persons. When 
the desire of property degenerates into the miser's love of gold, 
it becomes a mere artificial Appetite; the miser gloats over his 
gold, feels of it, enjoys the sensations it gives, thinks not of 
what it can purchase, but longs for it as a drunkard does for 
drink. 

When the Desire of Power becomes excessive and unregu- 
lated it is called Ambition, a term which is used, however, in 
other meanings. But in ambition, -in this sense, Self-love has 
a part, especially in the form of Self-esteem. A great ruler 
comes to think himself worthy of the service and adoration of 
whole nations, and' finds his chief joy in making millions do 
his bidding. 

Again, we may desire property on account of the indirect 
power which it gives us over persons, or we may desire power 
on account of the facility it will give us in acquiring property. 

DESIRE OF KNOWLEDGE. 

This Feeling might well be divided between the desire of 
property and that of power. We desire knowledge either to 
have it as our own, for the pleasure of possession, or to use it 
in getting power over others in order to procure other posses- 
sions. Knowledge must, indeed, be considered as, in itself, a 
higher good than property or power, since it pertains more 



The Affections. 249 

completely to the intellectual life, less to the social life. The 
desire of knowledge is universally recognized as pure and 
praiseworthy. Yet it is perhaps equally capable with the 
others of mixture with self-love, and is, like them, a self-regarding 
feeling. 

Desire of Knowledge may be perverted, artificial, and abnor- 
mal. When turned toward trifling objects, especially if they 
do not really concern us, it is called inquisitiveness. When it 
attaches an exaggerated importance to forms, it is called ped- 
antry. There are men who spend their lives in mousing out 
unimportant facts of history, and rejoice when they have found 
one, like a miser over hidden treasure. This love of knowl- 
edge corresponds to avarice. It loves facts for themselves, or 
for the pleasure of novelty, or for the vanity of discovery, — not 
for usefulness to mankind. 

Yet it is difficult to say what knowledge is worthless. The 
most apparently useless of items, especially in the sciences, 
may prove the key to unexplained and difficult problems. 



THE AFFECTIONS. 



We have found that the Appetites have reference to pleasure 
of the senses and excitement of the nerves; that the Desires 
have reference to the pleasure of possession, and its deriva- 
tives; that both are self- regarding, are easily complicated with 
self-love, and easily degraded into vicious, unworthy, or abnor- 
mal feelings. We have now to notice a class of feelings higher 
in every respect than these. They have reference, not to 
things, but to persons; they are not entirely self-regarding; they 
are connected with the highest pleasures of the social, moral, 



250 The Feelings. 

and religious life; their mere exercise affords the intensest 
pleasure, or, when they are perverted, the acutest pain. They 
are usually divided into Natural Affections and Moral Affec- 
tions. 

" They are that part of the constitution of man by which he 
is so put in relation with his fellows that society becomes pos- 
sible." (Hopkins, Moral Science, 130.) 

The simplest and most primitive of the Affections are the 
direct accompaniment of physical relations. The higher, 
more developed, and more complicated Affections arise out of 
family and social relations, and are developed in scope, breadth, 
and purity, by and with the general social, intellectual, and re- 
ligious progress of the race. We begin with the class nearest 
allied to the physical organism, as in our usual plan. 

NATURAL AFFECTIONS. 

These are usually divided into Benevolent and Malevolent. 
But it is in dispute whether there be any natural feeling which 
can properly be called malevolent. We prefer the terms 
Defensive and Punitive Feelings, and hold that any feeling" 
truly malevolent is a perversion, or artificial or abnormal 
development, of a necessary defensive endowment. We have 
already described defensive feeling in the form of Anger, and 
shown how it may change into Hatred, which is usually called 
an Affection. The terms benevolent and malevolent imply 
Will, while the Natural Affections do not. "Where an animal, 
as the parent bird, does good to another, it is from no rational 
estimate of the good as a motive lying before it, and so as good 
willing, but from a beneficent, spontaneous, constitutional 
impulse, prompting from behind. . . . It is equally true 
of the beast of prey that he has no malevolence towards his 
victim. He does not hate him, he simply wishes to eat him. 
. . . There is no natural affection, either in animals or in 



The Affections. 251 

man, that has for its object the production of evil for evil's sake." 
(Hopkins, Outline Study of Man, 217.) 

Whether the defensive and punitive feelings be Natural 
Affections or prolonged, half-suppressed, and complicated 
Emotions, may be a question of some difficulty, but does not 
seem important. Their perversion into hatred, cruelty, malice, 
and all strictly malevolent affections, is the work of Sin, and 
its discussion belongs to moral philosophy and theology. The 
Will must be investigated before this point can be understood. 

The beneficent natural affections are thus reduced to Love, 
Sympathy, and Self-love, which we shall briefly describe. 

LOVE. 

One difficulty in using the term Love is the ambiguity and 
wide range of the word. From the grossest physical appetites, 
through a vast range of different feelings of various kinds, up 
to the purest and loftiest feeling of adoration toward the 
Deity, Love is applied to all. Men are said to love any savory 
dish or any favorite drink, to love pleasure, to love excitement, 
to love their mothers, to love their friends, to love them- 
selves, to love their country, to love all men, to love God. 
Love is thus found among the Appetites, Emotions, Desires, 
and Affections. 

In describing Love as a natural affection, we of course do 
not use the word in any such vague sense, but confine it to 
love for sentient beings, and to disinterested love. 

Some writers have denied the possibility of disinterested af- 
fection, and declared that all human feelings are really egois- 
tic, that we love others because they give us pleasure, or be- 
cause it gives us pleasure to love them. But a love which is 
not altruistic is not worthy of the name of love. (The term 
Altruism was invented by Comte, as a correlative to Egoism, 
and has been widely used by Herbert Spencer and his disci- 



252 The Feelings. 

pies.) Egoistic love of others is a contradiction in terms. " A 
desire for our own happiness cannot be an element of affec- 
tion, and when, for the sake of that, we pursue toward others 
such a course as affection would prompt, the whole source and 
character of our happiness, if we gain any, is gone." (Hop- 
kins, Moral Science, 131.) 

Simulated love may gain lower ends, satisfaction of desire or 
appetite, but it cannot bring the pleasure which is the reaction 
of pure altruistic affection; and this fact is quite generally rec- 
ognized. Thus Mr. Herbert Spencer says, — " Pure egoism is, 
even in its immediate results, Jess successfully egoistic than is 
the egoism duly qualified by altruism, which, besides achiev- 
ing additional pleasures, achieves also, through raised vitality, a 
greater capacity for pleasures in general." He also says that 
even among the lower animals "parental sacrifice is not ac- 
companied by the consciousness of sacrifice, but is made from 
a direct desire to make it." And he adds, — " If we trace 
these relations up through the grades of mankind, and observe 
how largely love rather than obligation prompts the care of 
children, we see that achievement of parental happiness coin- 
cides with securing the happiness of offspring." (Data of 
Ethics § 79 and 92.) 

The best type of altruistic Natural Affection is the love of a 
mother for her child. This is the direct result of the physical 
relation between them. In the lower animals it subsists only 
as long as the young need the mother's care to sustain . life. 
In the human race this care is needed for several years, and 
maternal love changes its character, though losing, generally? 
nothing of its strength with time. 

In the progress of civilization or intellectual and spiritual 
culture, the mutual love of parent and child becomes refined, 
until it is the highest expression for purity, and is used as the 
type of the relation between God and the human race. 



The Affections. 253 

As the exercise of parental love gives the highest pleasure, 
well deserving the higher name of happiness, so its disappoint- 
ment gives the deepest pain. The loss of a child causes the 
deepest grief, the ingratitude of a child, " sharper than a ser- 
pent's tooth/' causes the heaviest sorrow. 

When love extends to strangers or to the whole race, as in 
the case of a missionary or an apostle, it belongs rather 
among the Moral Affections, involves the action of the Will, 
and deserves the name of a Benevolent Affection. 

The lower animals are capable of a good deal of natural af- 
fection for one another and for human beings, springing out of 
relations of constant companionship and complete depend- 
ence. 

SYMPATHY. 

This term, as its etymology denotes, means " with-feeling," 
pain or pleasure excited by the knowledge of the pain or pleas- 
ure of others. We call it a Natural Affection because it is 
spontaneous, and not under the control of the will, and be- 
cause it has beginnings in the physical organism. 

Thus, if we see a person rowing, or swimming, or balancing 
on a tight-rope, we sway our bodies in unison with him, if we 
are deeply interested. If one person yawns in a company, the 
others are impelled to yawn. "Unpractised assistants at sur- 
gical operations often faint; a boy has been known to die on 
witnessing an execution. We have all experienced the uncom- 
fortable feeling of shame produced in us by the blunders and 
confusion of a nervous speaker. We find ourselves unable to 
avoid joining in the merriment of our friends, whilst unaware 
of its cause; and children, much to their annoyance, are often 
forced to laugh in the midst of their tears, by witnessing the 
laughter of those around them." (Herbert Spencer, Social 
Statics, 115.) 

The fullest treatment of Sympathy has been by Adam 
I7 



254 The Feelings. 

Smith, who has founded a complete system of Ethics on this 
one principle, drawing, out the facts in a similar way, and with 
a like industry to that employed in his "Wealth of Nations." 
He has noticed, what is quite obvious, that Sympathy depends 
largely on the Imagination. We put ourselves in the place of 
another, and imagine how we should feel in the same circum- 
stances. Edmund Burke also says, " sympathy must be con- 
sidered as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the 
place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is 
affected." 

This operation of the imagination is shown in several ways, 
mentioned by Adam Smith. " We sometimes feel for another 
a passion of which he seems to be altogether incapable. We 
blush for the impudence and rudeness of another, though he 
himself appears to have no sense of the impropriety of his own 
behavior. . . What are the pangs of a mother, when she 
hears the moanings of her infant? In her idea of what it suf- 
fers, she joins, to its real helplessness, her own consciousness 
of that helplessness, and her own terrors for the unknown con- 
sequences of its disorder. The infant, however, feels only the 
uneasiness of the present instant, which can never be great. . 
. . We sympathize even with the dead, and overlooking what 
is of real importance in their situation, that awful futurity 
which awaits them, we are chiefly affected by circumstances 
which strike our senses, but can have no influence upon their 
happiness." (Theory of the Moral Sentiments 6-8.) 

Even a fictitious recital in a play or romance, brings sympa- 
thetic tears to the eyes of the sensitive. This kind of Sym- 
pathy has many degrees. "Those sensitive hearts," said 
Goethe, " any bungler can move them; " meaning that much 
sympathy is superficial. He himself, in his Sorrows of 
Werther, described the disappointment and suicide of his 
young friend so vividly, that the book is said to have caused 
scores of suicides. 



The Affections. 255 

It is a curious fact that sympathetic grief is often pleasur- 
able. The phrase "luxury of grief" has some truth in it. 
We enjoy sympathizing with the griefs of another, and he en- 
joys rehearsing the occasion of his pain and suffering it again 
in our company. 

Sympathy, in the true meaning of the word, is neither ego- 
istic nor altruistic. We do not sympathize with another be- 
cause it gives us pleasure to do so, nor because our sympathy 
gives him pleasure, but because we have a natural impulse to 
do so. 

The term is often used, however, though not, we believe, by 
accurate writers, in the sense of general benevolent or altruis- 
tic feeling. In this meaning it would come among the Moral 
Affections. 

SELF-LOVE AND SELFISHNESS. 

The term Self-love is a valuable one, as denoting a proper 
and rational Egoism, in distinction from Selfishness, which is 
an excessive and irrational Egoism. The term " Self-regarding" 
is also in general use now; as, Self-regarding Virtues, con- 
trasted with Altruistic Virtues. It is not easy to draw a the- 
oretical line between a proper and an excessive Self-love, be- 
tween a proper self-respect and a foolish self-conceit. But it 
is agreed by most recent ethical writers that there is such a 
line, and that self-love may be laudable or even necessary, and 
that self-conservation is a duty. 

Mr. Herbert Spencer has argued at great length that self-love 
is necessary even to the existence of altruism; that altruism, as 
a sole principle of action, would defeat itself, equally with 
egoism. This argument, one of the ablest and most striking 
in Mr. Spencer's works, is found in the latter chapters of the 
Data of Ethics. He cites the evils of indiscriminate charity 
in society, and of excessive self-sacrifice in the family. "Every 
one can remember circles in which the daily surrender of bene- 



256 The Feelings. 

fits by the generous to the greedy has caused increase of greed- 
iness, until there has been produced an unscrupulous greediness 
intolerable to all around." He points out that unthinking 
altruism would often lead to the death of those so disposed, 
and so to the injury of society; and that those who profess to be 
guided by pure altruism generally show in their actions a good 
mixture of egoism. After many other, more abstract argu- 
ments, which we cannot summarize, he concludes thus: — 

"It is admitted that self-happiness is, in a measure, to be 
obtained by furthering the happiness of others. May it not be 
true that, conversely, general happiness is to be obtained by 
furthering self-happiness ? If the well-being of each unit is to 
be reached partly through his care for the well-being of the 
aggregate, is not the well-being of the aggregate to be reached 
partly through the care of each unit for himself? Clearly, gen- 
eral happiness is to be achieved mainly through the adequate 
pursuit of their own happiness by individuals, while, recipro- 
cally, the happiness of individuals is to be achieved in part by 
their pursuit of the general happiness." (§ 91.) 

Our main objection to this argument is, — it seems to assume 
that there is really some danger of excessive altruism becom- 
ing the rule in society. On the contrary, the machinery of 
criminal law is employed to a vast extent in repressing exces- 
sive selfishness, while thousands of preachers and other moral 
teachers, employed in cultivating a very moderate type of altru- 
ism, do not have an alarming amount of success. The num- 
ber of those who need to be urged to moderate their altruism 
and cultivate egoism is still comparatively very small. 

The fact is, men act from mixed motives, some selfish and 
some unselfish, and are often egoistic in some relations of life 
and altruistic in others. Indiscriminate alms-giving, for ex- 
ample, is no proof of altruistic feeling; it is usually done to save 
trouble and annoyance, or from superstitious motives. Again, 



The Affections. 257 

a man may be kind and liberal to his family, but harsh and 
extortionate to his employes. 

The opposites, subjectively speaking, of Self-love, are self- 
reproach, self-abasement, and the like. Modesty and humility 
are rather opposites of self-conceit and self-complacency, and 
are not entirely incompatible with self-respect or self-love. 

A refined and rational selfishness in intelligent persons, 
would evidently require a proper subordination of the lower 
powers and feelings, because the higher give more exquisite 
and long-continued pleasure. It would also require that selfish- 
ness itself should not be too obtrusive, becoming self-conceit, 
arrogance, self-esteem, since these repel our fellow-men, and so 
make life less pleasant. 

Many terms are in common use, expressing different degrees 
and combinations of Natural Affection, such as, Passion, Grat- 
itude, Kindness, Trust, Faith, Vanity, Conceit, Self-compla- 
cency, Modesty, Friendship, Sociability, Courtesy, Resentment, 
Wrath, Indignation, Humanity, Philanthropy, Patriotism, Pity, 
Compassion, etc. To discriminate these is no part of our 
present purpose. 

MORAL AFFECTIONS. 

Some writers confuse the Natural with the Moral Affections, 
but, on the plan we have adopted, the distinction is plain, and, 
at least in theory, easily preserved. The Natural Affections 
spring out of natural relations, that is, physical or social rela- 
tions, not moral relations. Under the first we love our rela- 
tives, because we are born into intimate relations with them; 
not to love them is called unnatural. We love those who do 
us favors; not to do so is called ingratitude. We love, in a 
less intimate way, and are ready to benefit, our neighbors and 
friends, because of our social relations with them; not to do 
so is called base and churlish. 



258 The Feelings. 

But Moral Affection is love and approval toward all who dis- 
play moral excellence, self-sacrifice for worthy objects, purity, 
truthfulness, whether exerted toward ourselves or not. Or it is 
indignation and disapproval against those who display moral 
wrong, cruelty, injustice, etc., whether against ourselves or not. 
It has a still higher reach, too, in love for those who are morally 
base and wrong, and self-sacrificing efforts to make them better 
morally. This has the highest reward, and gives the highest 
happiness. " If ye love them which love you, what thank 
have ye ? " 

We may find aid in understanding moral feeling if we expand 
an illustration of President Hopkins. Suppose a perfectly 
good being to meet a perfectly bad one. What would be the 
feelings of the former ? He could- not love the latter, in the 
same way that he would love a being like himself. He would 
certainly feel repugnance, dislike, abhorrence, though he would 
strongly desiie that being's moral good. But suppose the evil 
being to perform some -wanton act of injury against the good 
being. There would then be condemnation, a holy resent- 
ment, a desire that the guilty being should be stopped in his 
career of evil, that justice should be done him, as a restraint 
and warning. 

This moral feeling of opposition is by some called malevo- 
lent, as the opposite of benevolent. But to understand malev- 
olence, in any proper sense of the term, we must imagine the 
feelings of the evil being while doing a wanton injury. He 
hates the good being, and wills to do him wrong; or he takes 
pleasure in the sufferings of others. 

It is evident, then, that Moral Affections involve the will, 
are either benevolent or malevolent. But we hold that the 
latter, as exhibited in man, are not a part of his original nature, 
but are exhibitions of an evil will, a nature perverted by sin. 

The discussion of the moral qualities of actions, of the 



The Affections. 259 

nature of good, of the nature and obligation of benevolent 
feeling and action, belong to the science of Ethics or Moral 
Philosophy. If requires previous study of the Will, and we do 
not deem it best to discuss Moral Affection more fully here. 

THE RELIGIOUS FEELINGS. 

These are the Emotions, Desires, and Affections, as related 
to and modified by the objects of religious contemplation. As 
the objects with which religion has to do are the most sublime 
of all objects, so the Emotions and Affections they excite are 
the purest and grandest of which the mind is capable. The 
Universe, the Eternal Creator, the happiness of the entire 
world, the Fatherhood of God, the immortality of man, — such 
subjects, when truly contemplated, necessarily arouse wonder, 
awe, reverence, godly fear, gratitude, and love. 

Many variations and combinations of the Moral Feelings 
receive distinct names, such as, — Mercy, Forgiveness, Thank- 
fulness, Justice, Esteem, Self-denial, Self-control, Benevolence, 
Piety, Holiness, with their opposites. 



— /. 



DEFINITIONS AND DISTINCTIONS, 



I. WILL. 



As Intellect is the mind perceiving, judging, and reasoning, 
and as Feeling is the mind experiencing pleasure and pain, so 
Will is the mind exercising Volition. 

It is incorrect to speak of the Will as the power of action. 
There is much action properly called spontaneous or involun- 
tary or automatic, in nature, in the physical organism, and in 
the mind. The word " action " is ambiguous, and may either 
mean physical operation in the series of causation, or purpose- 
ful and moral activity of a free agent. (German Wirken and 
Handeln.) 

Many of the activities of nature curiously simulate the pur- 
poseful activities of volition. The roots of a plant select from 
the soil just those elements which are necessary for its pecul- 
iar development, and, in general, reject all others. Animal 
tissue absorbs from the circulating blood those molecules 
which it needs, and, in general, rejects all others. When it 
fails in this discrimination, the result is abnormal growth or 
poisoning. The tendrils of plants curl themselves around their 
support with every appearance of volition. 

In the animal organism we find still higher involuntary ac- 
tivities. The spinal cord is the seat of a power of reflex move* 



Definitions and Distinctions. 261 

ment, some of whose phenomena we have already referred to. 
The cerebellum is supposed to be the seat of that co-ordina- 
tion of actions which renders possible all mechanical skill. A 
vast amount of activity in the organism is either beyond the 
sphere of volition, like the beating of the heart; or partly and 
occasionally under voluntary control, like respiration or wink- 
ing; or, originally voluntary, ceases to be entirely so through 
long practice, like the specific muscular efforts in walking. 

A considerable portion of the activity of the mind, too, may 
be called spontaneous. Man " finds a succession of thoughts 
bubbling up, like waters from a fountain, of which he knows 
not the source, and the flow of which he can no more stop 
than he can the flow of a river. . . . Man also feels de- 
sires springing up. These he may or may not gratify, but 
there they are, a part of his nature. The natural affections, 
too, put forth their tendrils like a vine, and quite as independ- 
ently of any will of man."' (Hopkins, Moral Science, 81.) 

II. VOLITION. 

The term Volition is generally used to denote the whole 
function of the Will. Yet a completed act of volition involves 
two distinct elements, Executive or External Volition, and 
Moral Volition or Choice. These, indeed, are sometimes 
called two distinct kinds of volition, while, on the other hand, 
some writers confound the two elements, and fail to make any 
distinction between them. "These elements of Will, choice 
and volition, have not been distinguished as they should have 
been, and, in consequence, the discussions respecting the Will 
liave been perplexed." (Hopkins, Outline Study, 225.) 

The two elements differ in several ways. The result of "an 
executive volition is an. external act or mental process; the re- 
sult of a choice is a state of the will, which may be called a 
state of choice or of determination, and which results in ex- 



262 The Will. 

ternal volitions, or a series of them, whenever the proper con- 
ditions are supplied. They differ in their nature; the former 
is mechanical, the latter spiritual and free. They differ in the 
matter with which they are concerned; the former has to do 
with the activities of physical and social life; the latter with 
rational and moral decisions and purposes. The former is 
shared by the lower animals, the latter belongs to man alone 
of earthly beings, and is what constitutes him a person. 
"Thus does the Will imply and involve the two great ele- 
ments of Intellect and Force. Intellect, it implies, in connec- 
tion with choice, for the purpose of comprehension and ration- 
ality; and Force in connection with volition, for the purpose of 
execution. We see, then, at this point, the two elements of 
which Will is composed, the power of choice, and the power 
of volition, each of which is essential to the being and the ex- 
pression of personality, in which, in order to constitute Will, 
the two must unite." (Hopkins, Outline Study, 224.) 

It would be well if the term Volition could be restricted to 
the meaning of executive volition, and the higher function of 
moral volition could be called by some other name, such as 
Choice, as is done by Dr. Hopkins. But if the term Choice 
be used, we need to remember that it does not include deliber- 
ation, as it often does in popular usage. The term Volition 
is so often used, however, in the wide sense, that the student 
needs, in any event, to be familiar with it in both meanings, 
and we can hardly escape all such use of it. 

Many recent writers, especially evolutionists, use the term 
Volition in the external sense only, and even stoutly deny that 
there is any other kind of volition. Bain, for example, de- 
scribes at great length the supposed origin, growth, cultivation, 
and perfection of voluntary movement of the different muscles 
of the body; he then describes the voluntary command of the 
feelings and thoughts, which he attributes to Attention and 



Definitions and Distinctions. 263 

Association. This is the highest function he permits to Will. 
Choice he degrades to decision between different objects of 
desire. " When a person purchases an article out of several 
submitted to view, the recommendations of that one are said 
to be greater than of the rest, and nothing more needs be said. 
It may happen for a moment the opposing attractions are ex- 
actly balanced, and decision suspended thereby, . . . but 
when the decision is actually come to, the fact and the mean- 
ing are that some consideration has arisen to the mind, giving 
a superior energy of motive to the side that has preponderated. 
. . . The designation, liberty of choice, has no real mean- 
ing, except as denying extraneous interference." (The Emo- 
tions and the Will.) 

But such a decision as Dr. Bain here describes is wholly an 
act of judgment, applying some previous volition, determining 
to select and buy that one of a certain set of articles which 
should fulfill certain conditions. As Dr. Bascom has said, 
" Bain gives the theory of brute life, we are striving to give 
that of rational life." Choice, or moral volition, is not simply 
the act of an ass between two bundles of hay, as we shall at- 
tempt to show later on. 

I. EXECUTIVE VOLITION. 

Executive Volition is not the origin of physical force. Mod- 
ern science has triumphantly established that all the physical 
force exerted by the organism is furnished by the transforma- 
tion of molecular energy. Volition pulls the trigger, or lights 
the fuse, so to speak, which sets free the mechanical force 
stored up in the body. If nutrition is insufficient, or the force 
has been exhausted, or the nerves are paralyzed, volition can- 
not be executed. " Mental causation, in regard to physical 
matters, bears a direct ratio to the amount of force contained 
in the food taken into the system, or otherwise received from 



264 The Will. 

the external world; at least it can never go beyond this. Thus 
it would appear that force is directed, not generated, by the 
soul." (Everett, Science of Thought. 50.) 

Force is the material with which volition is occupied, the 
element, the atmosphere on which it depends. "Volition," 
says President Hopkins, " piesupposes force, or rather is nuga- 
tory except in a being endowed with force." 

How it is that the mind can direct force, can occasion the dis- 
charge of force, is unknown. That it actually does so is 
clearly seen in the phenomena, already mentioned, of reflex 
movements and the expression of emotion. An idea, a per- 
ception, a representation, a piece of news, may occasion vio- 
lent movements of laughter, or involuntary screams and con- 
vulsions. The idea in the mind has of course no mechanical 
force, and cannot even " pull the trigger " which discharges 
nerve-force. But when the idea, in some unknown way, has 
become recorded in the brain, it may affect the whole physical 
organism in various ways. 

" The soul does not in any case produce motions of the 
body by its own immediate operation. But it produces a 
certain inner state, of desire or will, in itself. From this 
arises a physical movement, by a process unknown to con- 
sciousness and independent of the will. 

" Man can only will. That a realization follows does not at 
all depend on him, but on the circumstance that, in the order 
of nature, a certain change of state of the motor nerves is 
joined to a definite state of the soul. Where this connection 
is broken, will remains a mere desire without any conse- 
quences." (Lotze, Dictate, Psychologie. § 53, 58.) 

Indeed, it is held by recent writers, including Lotze, that all 
power of directing the energies of the body is acquired; that 
the soul only finds out that the body is movable through ex- 
perience of its involuntary movements. It is at least certain 



Definitions and Distinctions. 265 

• 

that facility and accuracy of movement are acquired, and that 
when a movement is perfected by practice, it tends to become 
involuntary or automatic. 

A knowledge of these facts, together with a misapprehension 
of the true location of freedom, seems to have been the source 
of a number of erroneous definitions of volition. 

Spinoza said that the will and the intellect are one and the 
same. Hobbes said that the will is the last desire in delib- 
erating. (Leviathan, 28.) Dr. T. Brown said that volition is 
a "feeling which the body immediately obeys." Mr. Austin 
said, " by volitions we mean desires which consummate them- 
selves." Bain says, "our voluntary actions consist in putting 
forth muscular power." 

These writers have seen that volition is not a muscular 
movement, but apparently have not seen the truth, that voli- 
tion is the act of the mind which occasions or commands that 
movement. But volition seldom orders a single disconnected 
movement, but usually an action, or series of actions, and the 
specific movements follow according to habit and association. 
This introduces our next distinction. 

2. GENERIC AND SPECIFIC VOLITIONS. 

Another necessary distinction is that between specific, sub- 
ordinate or secondary, and generic or primary volitions or 
choices. The latter are those which involve and necessitate 
subordinate volitions under them. Obviously, the lowest rank 
of subordinate volitions will always be executive volitions. 

For example, if I determine to take a certain journey, that 
is a generic volition; for it requires me to take all necessary 
measures to carry it out, such as providing funds, securing my 
ticket, packing my trunk, taking leave of my friends, — all those 
acts which my habits and condition determine for me in such 
a case. But each of these may have under it, in turn, subor- 



266 The Will. 

dinate volitions, — walking to a certain house or office, putting 
certain articles in my trunk, and the like. These acts in their 
turn involve many specific muscular movements, some of 
which are automatic, some co-ordinated, some habitual, and 
some definitely willed. But the whole series is a necessary 
consequence of my generic volition; and when I come to de- 
cide, in each specific case, which of two or more actions is best 
adapted to further my generic volition, the decision is an act of 
judgment, not of will, and the carrying out of my decision is 
an executive volition. 

But again, this generic volition may be subordinate to others 
above it in rank. My journey may be part of a plan to engage 
in business, to get an education, to enter a profession; and 
since such a plan involves a whole life, generic choices or voli- 
tions can seldom be higher in rank than these. The highest 
possible generic choice is easily seen to be the determination 
to be always governed, in every relation of life, by the best 
motives, rules, and maxims, — to act in accordance with the 
law of God as known and understood. 

Another example, — " I have a strong desire to drink of some 
grateful beverage, or to eat of some tempting food; but I find 
or fear that to do so might be injurious to my health. I pause, 
and hesitate; but at length decline the dangerous gratification. 
According to Dr. Brown [and Prof. Bain], there is nothing in 
this case but the desire of eating or drinking being overcome 
by the desire of health, — that is, a weaker desire by a stronger." 
According to the older advocates of free-will, whenever the 
tempting dish is presented, I balance anew the motives on 
each side, and reach a free decision. According to more recent 
advocates of free-will, I have previously decided to avoid what- 
ever I know to be injurious to my health, and when the grati- 
fication is offered me, I have only to decide, by an act of judg- 
ment, whether it comes under the class of things injurious to 



Definitions and Distinctions. 267 



my health, and if so it is at once rejected. This implies, it will 
be noticed, that the generic volition is imperious and unchange- 
able; this may be the case, but in fact generic volitions are sub- 
ject to change or suspension. I may forget it, under strong 
excitement; I may give it up when appetite or desire is strong. 
But, in such a case, I have afterwards a feeling of shame for 
my inconsistency or sin. A truly rational being does not 
lightly change a generic choice or volition, when once made in 
the full light of reason. 

Some terms, used to denote generic rational choice, and the 
state of determination which it produces, may perhaps require 
explanation. 

1. Immanent Preference. This denotes the state of the 
Will when a choice has been reached, but no opportunity of 
completing it by executive volitions has been afforded. Here 
the generic volition is constantly in force. " A continual state 
of choice," says Dr. Hopkins, " is as much a condition of our 
lives, at least in our waking hours, as continual thought." The 
value of right preferences of this kind can hardly be over- 
estimated. " The immanent preference of objects and ends," 
says Dr. Hickok, " must widely affect the entire personal char- 
acter, though the action towards the object externally be always 
restrained. The whole inner experience of the man is modi- 
fied by it, and all his habits of meditation and silent reflection 
become tinged with the color of his secret preferences." The 
Bible attributes moral quality to these preferences. "Thou 
shalt not covet." "Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer." 
" It was in thine heart to build an house to my name, thou 
didst well that it was in thine heart." 

2. Governing Purpose means a generic choice manifesting 
itself in subordinate volitions, prompting and guiding them. 
"The action, as will, has not terminated in the choosing; it 
flows on in a perpetuated current toward its object, and the spirit 



268 The Will. 

may be said to be in a permanent state of will." The act of 
choice, by which the mind entered upon this state of will, may 
have passed out of memory, or may have never been very 
clearly in consciousness. A man may have almost uncon- 
sciously formed the governing purpose to amass riches, may 
have "set his heart on getting rich," as his friends say of him, 
"and the purpose itself may have strengthened so insidiously, 
that the man has no conception what a very miser he has be- 
come; but there needs only to be suddenly interposed some 
threatened danger to his wealth, or some obstacle to any fur- 
ther gains, and at once the perturbed spirit manifests the in- 
tensity of its avarice." (Dr. Hickok.) 

3. Disposition, Character, Heart, and other terms, are often 
used in a way which implies the conception of generic choices. 

III. MOTIVES. 

The term Motive is used in several distinct senses, the more 
important of which must be carefully distinguished. 

I. OBJECTIVE MOTIVES. 

In popular speech the term Motive is applied to the out- 
ward object through apprehension of which by the Intellect, 
Feeling becomes excited, and so the Will set in action. But 
here there is generally a conscious or half-conscious ellipsis. 
When we say, " money was the motive of his actions," we 
mean the love of money, the desire of property. It is incor- 
rect to speak of the external object as directly moving the will. 
All are agreed that intellect must first apprehend the object, 
and feeling must be aroused to activity by this apprehension. 

Some writers use the term Motive in a way which at first 
sight seems to refer to the external object, but it will usually 
be found that this is not their meaning. Thus Jonathan 
Edwards says, — "By motive I mean the whole of that which 



Definitions and Distinctions. 269 

moves, excites, or invites the mind to volition, whether that be 
one thing singly, or many things conjunctly." But he also 
says, — "Whatever is a motive, must be something that is ex- 
tant in the view or apprehension of the understanding or per- 
ceiving faculty." Here the motive is, not simply the external 
object, but the object as viewed or apprehended by the mind. 
But even this is not in accordance with the best recent philo- 
sophical usage. 

President Day, again, uses similar expressions. " An object 
which is in view of the mind, has a tendency to move the 
will." But he adds, " that which immediately excites the voli- 
tion is an affection of the mind, an emotion, an internal mo- 
tive." This, we believe, is always really understood. An ex- 
ternal object cannot be a motive, in any proper sense of the 
word. All motives are subjective. 

2. subjective motives. 

All motives are, properly speaking, subjective. The dis- 
tinction between objective and subjective motives is then a 
cautionary one, having no real value in the discussion of the 
Will. 

But the term subjective is often applied to motives in an- 
other and peculiar way, implying that the same object or event 
may be the occasion of more or less urgent desires or emo- 
tions, when apprehended by one person than by another, or by 
the same person in different circumstances, and hence of dif- 
ferent volitions. " A man of slow, narrow intellect is unable to 
perceive the value of an object, or the advantage of a course 
of conduct, so clearly or so quickly as a man of large and vig- 
orous intellect. 

" The consequence will be, that with the same motives 

(objectively considered) presented to them, the one may 

remain indifferent to the advantage held out, while the 
18 



270 The Will. 

other will at once apprehend and pursue it. A man of cold 
and dull affections will contemplate a spectacle of pain or 
want, without feeling any desire or making any exertion to re- 
lieve it; while he whose sensibilities are more acute and lively 
will instantly be moved to the most active and generous efforts. 
An injury done to one man will rouse him at once to a frenzy 
of indignation, which will prompt him to the most extravagant 
measures of retaliation; while, in another man, it will only give 
rise to a moderate feeling of resentment." (Fleming, Moral 
Philosophy, 177.) 

This important variation* in the power of motives should 
rather be called relativity than subjectivity of motives. It evi- 
dently has no relation to the Will, but only to the Intellect 
and Feeling. 

3. MOTIVE AS CAUSE. 

The term Motive is most widely used to denote that state of 
Feeling which precedes and determines an act of the Will, 
"the terminating state or affection of the mind which imme- 
diately precedes the volition." But this does not, of course, 
imply that the motive is the sole cause. " Motives do not pro- 
duce volitions without a mind. They are not the agent 
They do not love and hate, resolve and choose. But if a mo- 
tive has any influence on the determination of the will, it is 
one of the antecedents on which the volition depends. The 
agent does not will without motives, nor do motives will with- 
out an agent." (President Day, Inquiry, 59.) 

The definition of Edwards includes this meaning of Motive 
also. But it should be noted that, in his time, Desire was con- 
sidered a part of the will, and not classed among the feelings. 

Popular language also makes use of this sense of the word 
Motive. Thus we say, "his motive in running away was fear," 
''my motive in asking was mere curiosity." Moreover, we 



Definitions and Distinctions. 271 

always expect some such motive and search for it. We say, 
" what motive could he have had for so strange an action ? " 
And we are satisfied with the answer that it was revenge, or 
avarice, or remorse. 

Of course, if the Motive is the cause, or part of the cause, 
of volition, questions will arise as to the connection between 
the state of the Feeling and the Will. This has indeed been 
the subject of various theories and of much controversy, 
Those who deny freedom easily settle the point by saying that 
the connection is a causative one, the state of the Desire being 
the cause of the state of the Will. Believers in freedom are 
bound to show where freedom resides. 

It is generally admitted that freedom does not reside in the 
intellect or in the feelings. When an external object is pre- 
sented to the sense-organs (proper conditions being implied), 
the miud cannot help perceiving it, and perceiving under the 
categories of Space, Number, and Identity; cannot choose but 
classify it, and experience associations connected with it. No 
more can it escape the feelings aroused by this perception, 
with its accompanying associations. The question is, whether 
these feelings irresistibly cause, or only afford opportunity for 
the volition that follows. 

Perhaps the best and at the present time most usual answer, 
on the part of those who believe in freedom, is that the mind 
has a power of rational choice by which it can select the high- 
est and noblest motives, and act according to them. On this 
theory, motives are the material with which the Will works, the 
medium in which it operates, the atmosphere that sustains it, 
rather than the cause of its activity. The full answer to the 
question must be postponed until we have made further 
preparations. 



272 The Will. 

4. motive as end. 

Another use of the term Motive is to denote the End (object, 
purpose, final cause) of an action, that for which it is done. 
Here is obviously introduced a quite different and higher con- 
ception. We have now the idea of a rational being, purposely 
adapting his activities to a pre-conceived and previously chosen 
end; formerly we had the idea of a being capable of feeling, 
acted upon by external objects or events, and aroused to activ- 
ity in response. The difference is that between volition and 
choice. 

Under this view, motives are expressed by the phrase, " in 
order to be or to do something." For example, we may eat in 
order to be strong, and this is a different thing from eating be- 
cause the appetite of hunger impels us to satisfy a natural 
want, though the resulting action be the same. Or, again, a 
better example, I may take exercise in order to grow strong; 
and this is a different thing from exercising, like a child or a 
colt, because of an overflow of nervous energy. The one may 
evidently be called a rational action, the other not. Again, a 
man may pursue a dangerous and disagreeable course of action 
in order to rescue an acquaintance from vice or crime. Such an 
end would be in the highest degree rational. 

This introduces the further truth, that ends, as well as voli- 
tions, are of different ranks, rising one above the other. The 
motive of a subordinate volition is a subordinate end; the 
motive of a generic volition is an ultimate end; the motive of a 
supreme choice is a supreme end. A supreme choice and end 
control all inferior choices and ends. 

5. STRENGTH OF MOTIVES. 

The comparative strength of Motives has been the subject 
of a good deal of discussion, especially with reference to the 



Definitions and Distinctions. 273 

question whether the Will is always determined by the strong- 
est motive. 

If by strength of motives is meant the strength which they 
ought Lo have, as guiding the will to the best actions, and the 
whole man to the highest ends of his being, — even thus, it 
might be very difficult, often, in the complication of human 
life, to decide which subordinate volitions are best in harmony 
with the supreme choice, and thus a wide field would be left 
open for discussion with regard to the strength of motives. 

But the facts in relation to the relativity or subjectivity of 
motives, explained above, render all calculations of the strength 
of motives quite beyond human power. There can be no way 
of measuring their efficacy except by the result. There seems 
no way out of the difficulty but to admit that the will is always 
as the strongest subjective motive; yet men often obey motives 
which seem to others strangely inadequate. 

6. conflict of motives. 

This conflict may be of various kinds. (1) It may be a con- 
flict between several Desires or Appetites which cannot all be 
gratified. For example, I may wish to eat my cake and keep 
it too; here the conflict is between the present and the future. 
Some minds depict to themselves the future more vividly than 
others, and are inclined to postpone all present enjoyment to a 
good time coming. 

(2) The conflict may be between taking what we can get, or 
striving for the impossible. Haifa loaf is better than no bread, 
though we strongly desire and greatly need a whole loaf. We 
may be obliged to choose between education and wealth, or 
honor and power, with their varied gratifications. Here again 
different temperaments of mind will be displayed, some striv- 
ing frantically for the unattainable, others wisely limiting the 
range of their desires. 



274 The Will. 

(3) The conflict may be between lower and higher ends. 
Physical necessities are usually more pressing than intellectual 
wants, more imperious than spiritual needs. To subordinate 
the lower propensities, the habits of life, the customs and fash- 
ions of society, to a rational end, is always considered a tri- 
umph. 

A supreme choice of a rational end is sometimes made with 
sufficient strength to carry with it all intermediate or subor- 
dinate volitions, and bear down all opposing motives. But 
this is seldom the case. Temptations are still felt to have 
power, even by the best of men, and the conflict of motives is 
unceasing. Often strength of impulse, or habit, or desire, 
overcome the perception and judgment of the intellect, and 
make a certain subordinate end seem to be in harmony with 
the supreme choice, though it is really in conflict, and is after- 
wards seen to be so. 

IV. DESIRE. 

The term Desire, when used in connection with the Will, 
usually denotes the last state of the Feeling before volition, 
whatever its specific nature. Thus it may include all the ap- 
petencies of human nature, — -Appetite, Desire in its limited 
sense, and a large element of Affection. Desire, in this usage, 
being the last preliminary before volition and the " terminat- 
ing state " of feeling is often, not inappropriately, called " in- 
cipient volition." It is easy to see, therefore, why Desire was 
so long considered as an act of the Will. 

Sometimes, however, Desire is said to be the opposite of 
volition. Thus Bain says that we only desire what we cannot 
get. " Desire is the state of mind where there is a motive to 
act without the ability, ... a transformation of the 
Will proper, undergone in circumstances where the act does 
not immediately follow the motive." We submit that a' trans- 
formation of volition into non-volition needs some other ex- 
planation. 



Definitions and Distinctions. 275 

This contradiction is reconciled by the distinction between 
Volition and Choice. If volition is merely executive, only re- 
sulting in external actions, then Desire may properly be the 
name of the preceding state, inseparable from volition. I de- 
sire to move my hand, and the motion immediately follows. 
Volitions would then be properly called " desires which con- 
summate themselves." But if volition is a rational or moral 
choice, then several desires may be presented to the mind, the 
gratification of which is the end of action or motive, and 
among them the mind will select that one which, all things 
considered, seems to it the most desirable. Desire, on this 
theory, is a necessary pre-requisite of volition, not as a cause 
but as furnishing the objects of choice. Thus Dr. Brown and 
Dr. Bain have attempted to join the first meaning of volition 
with the second meaning of desire, and the result is confusion. 

The broad meaning of the term Desire in connection with 
the will, suggests that mentioned under Feeling, as generic de- 
sire, the sum of all the desires, the desire of happiness, or of 
"good." The full definition of Good belongs to the science 
of ethics. But the term Happiness may properly be used as 
including all possible good, whether of the agent or any other 
sentient being, and so be the sum of all rational ends. The 
only rational supreme choice, then, is a determination to seek 
the happiness, in the highest sense, of all sentient beings. 
Now, this does not mean what Herbert Spencer calls "pure 
altruism," that is, excessive, irrational, and useless self-sacrifice. 
Mr. Spencer has most ingeniously shown, from the objective 
side, what indeed is generally admitted, that such self-efface- 
ment is positively immoral. A rational choice must of course 
be rationally carried out. Popular language recognizes this 
truth. For when a man devotes himself unselfishly to trifling 
ends, and spends his life for what is intended for the good 9f 
others but is important only in his own eyes, we call him a fa- 



276 The. Will. 

natic or a lunatic. Yet popular language also recognizes the 
other side of the truth; for when a man acts for self alone, 
with no altruistic ends, we call him selfish, worldly, mean, mis- 
anthropical, criminal, according to the degree of outwardness 
with which he acts out his principle of life. But when a man 
adopts the sublime end of the highest good of his race or na- 
tion, and pursues it amid the seductions of pleasure and the 
threats of power, we call him a hero, a saint, a martyr, — even 
though he make mistakes and failures. 

Now, is such a rational choice possible? We affirm that it 
is. Yet we admit that vast numbers of human beings never 
make this choice, but live a life of habit and association and 
mere volition in accordance with desire, or even a life of posi- 
tive selfishness and injustice. Indeed, if the Will be nothing 
but executive volition, they must live thus, and all higher en- 
deavors are an illusion. We admit, moreover, that many who 
think they have chosen this highest end, nevertheless do not 
consistently perform all the subordinate volitions which logi- 
cally belong to their choice. The urgency of desire misleads 
the intellect, and they make mistakes; or overwhelms the 
determination and they suspend the supreme choice. But 
that man can rationally choose an end beyond his own 
individual happiness, the satisfaction of his own desires, may 
be shown by various considerations. We mention three of 
the most important. 

1. Consciousness. We directly know that we can take for 
our end, in any definite course of action, or in the conduct of 
life, the good of others or of the universe. This is denied by 
some, and of course we cannot disprove their denial concern- 
ing their own consciousness. But there is another argument 
from consciousness. 

2. We are conscious of the obligation to act unselfishly, hence 
such action must be possible. This is the celebrated argument 



Freedom of the Will. 277 

of Kant, which he applies to free-will. We are not concerned 
here with the nature or reality of obligation, subjects which be- 
long to ethics. But certainly the consciousness of obligation is 
a great fact in human nature, which cannot be explained 
away. 

3. Experience of human life exhibits many actions per- 
formed without hope of reward, or even under the certainty of 
death, through adherence to a lofty Ideal, and pursuit of ends 
outside of self. For example, a foreign missionary can hardly 
have any selfish motives for going abroad. Yet the heathen, 
for whose benefit he goes, have great difficulty in believing that 
his motive is altruistic, and are only slowly convinced that such 
a thing is possible. For, in their state of moral degradation, 
they have little experience of such actions. ■ A Christian civili- 
zation, however, should afford many such instances. 



FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 



The time-honored phrase, "Freedom of the Will," should be 
avoided as much as possible, though it has been used by so 
many writers that the student must become familiar with it. 
Some of the objections to it are: — 

1 . It seems to imply that a will may be enslaved or not free. 
But in fact Will means freedom. A mere necessary sequence 
of events from perception to desire and from desire to execu- 
tive volition is not Will. The phrase Free-will is thus a pleo- 
nasm. This confusion arises from using the term Will in the 
sense of physical execution, as well as of volition in the true 
sense. 

2. It seems to imply that man's will may be free, and the 



278 The Will. 

rest of his nature not free, though what is really meant is that 
the Will is the ruling power of the mind, and if that is free the 
man is free. It is better to speak of human freedom, or the 
freedom of man. The real question is, — Is man capable of a 
rational choice, and, if so, how? Our previous discussions 
have led the way up to this question, so that we have only to 
unfold the true doctrine on this subject from the definitions 
and distinctions already given. We shall first examine the ap- 
plication of the more important of these distinctions to some 
errors, objections, and questions. 

I. FREEDOM AND CAUSATION. 

The most important recent objections to the doctrine of 
Freedom spring from the modern scientific views concerning 
causation. Science declares that every event must have a 
cause; but in seeking a cause for a physical change it really 
seeks a force which will account for that change, and, by the 
grand truth of the correlation of forces, it is often enabled to 
trace causal force in ways until recently unknown and incredi- 
ble. This correlation has been traced in the muscular move- 
ments of animals. If it be asked, what causes the movement 
of my arm, the answer must be, that the force is supplied by 
the transformation of stored-up chemical energy in my food 
into mechanical energy in my arm. Volition does not supply 
this force, and to a certain extent the force would discharge it- 
self spontaneously, as in the play of young animals. But in an 
ordinary movement the signal for the discharge of muscular 
force is given by an impulse along the motor nerves. This 
impulse originates in a state of one part or another of the 
brain, or spinal cord, or the ganglia. For example, if a gun be 
unexpectedly discharged near me, I start or "jump," without 
volition. A part of the nerve-impulse received is diverted to 
the spinal cord and causes a reflex movement, while another 



Freedom of the Will. 279 

part reaches the cerebrum and occasions a sensation of sound. 
But in an ordinary movement the impulse originates in a state 
of the brain, and this state may have an immediate cause, in 
sensation, or may be the result of an idea, a state of the mind. 

The term volition ought to be restricted to this part of the 
process, namely, the state of the mind. For how this state of 
the mind occasions a state of the brain is unknown and in- 
scrutable, as in the reverse cases of sensation and feeling. 
And the lower part of the process is wholly mechanical. But 
we cannot hope to so restrict the term, for it is much used with 
reference to muscular movements, especially by materialistic 
writers. ■ Thus, Ribot has diligently collected a large number 
of very interesting cases of what he calls diseases of volition. 
But they are nearly all cases of partial or total paralysis of 
certain motor nerves, often complicated with disease of the 
brain. 

Now many writers carry this idea of physical causation over 
into the mind, and declare that a state of the mind is an event 
which requires a cause just as a state of brain or muscle does. 
Lotze meets this objection by a simple denial that the reign of 
causation is universal. He gives the first coming into being 
of atoms of matter, and their original atomic vibration, as in- 
stances of events which cannot be caused. Physical science 
takes these for granted, and only attempts to account for the 
changes which now occur. "The objection that freedom is 
an exception to the causal nexus which rules elsewhere through- 
out the entire universe, rests on the groundless assumption that 
complete uniformity must necessarily reign in the dependence 
of the whole universe. Investigation of the moral world seems 
to lead just as necessarily to the conception of freedom, as in- 
vestigation of nature leads to the conception of causal nexus. 
If we begin with causal nexus we of course shall find no place 
for freedom. But if we begin with a persuasion that free ac- 



280 The Will. 

tivities do really have place in the world, we are obliged to as- 
sume also the causal nexus. For Will cannot bring about its 
purpose unless it can rely upon fixed and definite circumstan- 
ces with which its operations can be carried on." (Dictate, 
practische Philosophic, §21.) 

This is made still clearer, we think, by the distinction be- 
tween executive and generic volitions. Freedom belongs to 
rational choice, executive volitions are necessitated. " What 
we need to know is the point of freedom. That is in choice, 
and in that only. Choice being once fully made, volition fol- 
lows of course. It may not follow at once; the choice may abide 
alone, but when the volition comes it is born of choice. 
. . The one is the essential element of freedom manifest- 
ing itself in the spiritual realm, and is the immediate object of 
the divine government; the other simply instrumental and exec- 
utive, and is that of which human governments chiefly take 
cognizance. And in connection with these two elements, of 
Will, the one free and the other necessitated, we may see the 
harmony there is between freedom and necessity, and the need 
of necessity in order to freedom. If the freedom is to result 
in responsibility, or is to avail anything with respect to conduct, 
there must be in connection with it a system of necessity. A 
man stands by a stream of water. He has the power to turn it, 
in this direction for the purpose of irrigation, or in that for the 
purpose of destruction, and this power he has, with the at- 
tendant responsibility, simply because the stream is subject to 
invariable and necessary law. If he could not control it by 
such a law, he could not know what the consequences would 
be, and would not be responsible for them. Hence the region 
of freedom is wholly conditioned on the regions of necessity, 
physical, vital, and intellectual." (Hopkins, Outline Study 
of Man, 225.) 

The modern advocates of necessity strengthen their position 



Freedom of the Will. 



281 



by reference to the admitted uniformity of human action. 
" The prediction of human conduct," says Bain, " is not less 
sure than the prediction of physical phenomena." Mr. Buckle, 
that eloquent and dashing writer, made much of this line of 
argument, relying upon the statistics of crime, suicide," etc. 
So far as this argument refers to rational action, it rests upon the 
pre-supposition that conduct which is not necessitated must be 
capricious and unreasonable. But in fact, the exact opposite is 
plainly true. Rational action is the least capricious of all ac- 
tion, and in proportion as action is rational will it be certainly 
the same in the same circumstances. If we can predict what 
a man will do in certain circumstances, it is because we know 
his dominant or supreme choice, his governing purpose, his 
character. If he has an established truthful character we say 
"he cannot lie," and this is called moral inability, and much 
discussion has been expended upon it. If we know that a 
man's dominant chpice is to have no rational volition, but to be 
guided by the solicitations of appetite, we predict his actions as 
we would those of a horse or a dog, with no less certainty, and 
no more, for he is on the same level, and leads the same kind 
of life. And of course there will be a good deal of uniformity 
in his actions. Or, if we know that his supreme choice is to 
obey the law of God, we may yet inquire into the operations of 
his intellect, how he understands that law, before we feel like 
predicting his conduct. 

The necessarian says, "you cannot act otherwise than you do; 
your conduct is the result of motives which arouse your feel- 
ing and thus determine your will." The older advocates of 
freedom replied, "yes I can act otherwise than I do; I am free 
in every action, in each executive volition; I have power of 
contrary choice in them all." But most of the recent advo- 
cates of freedom would -reply, " I know that my executive 
volitions are in large measure dependent on my character, 



282 The Will. 

and habits, and previous volitions, and circumstances, and the 
influence of motives. But this character, and these habits, 
and the subjective value of these motives, are greatly modified 
by my previous rational and moral choices, and above all by 
my supreme choice, and this I know was freely made." Thus 
the distinction of executive, intermediate, and supreme voli- 
tions, a distinction chiefly elaborated by the New England 
theologians, has thrown more light on the doctrine of the Will 
than any other modern discovery. 

II. FREEDOM AND THE SOUL. 

Most of the arguments against Freedom rest on the assump- 
tion that the mind or soul is a thing, subject to ordinary cau- 
sation, having material qualities, inert in itself, and only aroused 
into action by the causative force of motives. This view 
would in consistency require the denial of moral responsibility. 
Many of these writers are not willing to purchase consistency 
at such a price; but Dr. Bain goes all lengths, and says, 
"The term responsibility is a figurative expression of the kind 
called 'metonomy' where a thing is named by some of its 
causes, effects, or adjuncts, as when the crown is put for royalty, 
or the mitre for episcopacy." (The Emotions and The Will.) 

We have already argued (pp. 198-207), that the mind is not 
a mate rial, thing. The mind is, in truth, a self-active entity, a 
person. But when it acts it must act in some particular way, 
must do what is within its power, must act under the limita- 
tions of its nature and of its situation in a world of matter, and 
a world of other beings like itself. It may pursue rational 
ends, and this is freedom; it may select suitable means to at- 
tain them, and this is wisdom; it may select unfit means or in- 
termediate volitions, and this we call foolishness. Or, it may 
choose not to pursue rational ends at all, but select only among 
the inferior ends of pleasure, and the animal life, and the 



Freedom of the Wibl. 283 

social state; and this is to abdicate freedom, to give one's self 
up to the " slavery of the will." The majority of human beings 
seem to live thus. • 

The reason why the mind acts is unknowable; it is its nature 
to do so. Volition or choice is the activity of such a spirit in 
view of certain ends, among which it can choose. It does not 
decide blindly; such a decision would not be a responsible one. 
It does not decide groundlessly; such a decision would not be 
rational. It decides in view of the Good; but, "if the motive, 
even of Good," says Lotze, " had a mechanically operating 
power to produce a decision, this decision would be a natural 
product, devoid of responsibility or moral judgment." (Op. 
cit. § 22.) Will, then, has its existence among motives as a 
bird floats on the air. or a fish in the water. They are the 
conditions of its being, for Will is this department of the 
activity of the soul, namely, as related to ends or motives. 

Even Edwards seems to have thought of the soul as a thing, 
under the dominion of motives in a causal nexus. His illustra- 
tions, when arguing from necessity, are drawn from external ac- 
tions and physical causation. His very definition of freedom 
seems to imply this. He says a man is free when he is at liberty 
to act as he pleases, under no external restraint. Such freedom 
should rather be called physical, or social, or political freedom, 
not rational. An act of rational choice may have no relation 
whatever to external restraint. If a man choose to worship 
God in his heart, force cannot alter his choice. Threats of 
torture or actual pain may cause him to conceal his choice or 
deny it, they cannot affect the choice itself. Only rational 
motives can do that. 

It should be remembered, however, in quoting or reading 
Edwards on the Will, that it is not a complete theory. Its 
title is, "An Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of 
that Freedom of the Will which is supposed to be essential to 



284 The Will. 

moral agency, virtue and vice, reward and punishment, praise 
and blame." It was an attack on the Arminian doctrine of 
the ." Liberty of Indifference." In the specific task which he 
had set himself he was successful; but many of his arguments 
are exceedingly abstract, and some of them are now seen to 
be mere logical puzzles. Liberty of Indifference is usually un- 
derstood to mean, "a power to determine in opposition to all 
motives, or in absence of any motive." The usual argument 
now used against it is to show that it is not rational. " A being 
with this kind of liberty would not be a reasonable being; and 
an action done without a motive is an action done without an 
end in view, that is, without intention or design, and, in that 
respect, could not be called a moral action." (Fleming, Moral 
Philosophy, 191.) 

The truth that the soul has original activity of its own may 
be so stated as to lead to a curious complication. Thus, if we 
say that it originates one of its own states by our act of will, 
then it may be replied that this act of will must be caused by a 
previous state of will, and so on in an infinite series. Or, as 
Edwards expressed it, " If the will determines itself, it must be 
by an antecedent volition, that volition again must be deter- 
mined by another going before it, and so on in an infinite 
series." The best escape from this puzzle seems to be to drop 
the phrase "act of will" and substitute "act of mind." The 
mind acts as Will when it acts in the sphere of motives, and in 
so acting it determines its state, we may say, to be a state of 
choice. But this determination is not its purpose, any more 
than, in perceiving, the mind as intellect determines itself to a 
state of perceiving. When we- say the Will determines itself, 
that is only a roundabout way of saying that the mind acts, as 
Will, among motives, that is, acts rationally. 



Freedom of the Will. 285 



III. FREEDOM AND GOD'S FOREKNOWLEDGE. 

Those who believe that God foresees all events have ex- 
perienced great difficulty in reconciling this truth with the 
doctrine of human freedom. The argument for necessity 
drawn from the divine foreknowledge was strongly pressed by 
Edwards. His argument is contained in three divisions. 

1. After proving from the Bible that God already knows 
all future events, Edwards says that this foreknowledge, being 
already fixed and certain, is necessary; and hence all events 
indissolubly connected with it are necessary; but the volitions 
of moral agents being certainly foreknown, are thus connected 
with this foreknowledge, and hence are necessary. 

Reply has been made to this argument on the ground that 
certainty and necessity are quite different things. This was 
well stated by Dr. T. Reid. " I know no rule of reasoning 
by which it can be inferred that because an event certainly 
shall be, therefore its production must be necessary. The 
manner of its production, whether free or necessary, cannot be 
concluded from the time of its production, whether it be past, 
present, or future. That it shall be, no more implies that it 
shall be necessarily, than that it shall be freely produced; for 
neither past, present, nor future have any more connection 
with necessity than with freedom. I grant, therefore, that from 
events being foreseen, it may justly be concluded they are cer- 
tainly future, but from their being certainly future, it does not 
follow that they are necessary." (Active Powers, Essay IV.) 

President Day detected in the argument a double meaning 
of the term Necessity. " As some have made the liberty of 
the will to consist in a freedom from the determining influence 
of motives; so to be subject to such motives, they have called 
necessity. But if a man can be determined, by motives, to 
19 



286 The Will. 

will in a particular way, this does not imply that he is induced 
to will against his will. The use of a term in so different and 
in some respects, opposite senses, is the occasion of number- 
less misapprehensions. According to some philosophers, the 
dependence of our volitions upon anything preceding is neces- 
sity; whereas, in common language, the want of dependence 
of our actions upon our volitions, is what is called necessity. 
Why should necessity, in the one case, signify dependence, 
and in the other, the opposite of dependence. Liberty and 
necessity are generally understood to be inconsistent with each 
other. But if very diverse meanings are given to both these 
terms, it is not certain that every kind of liberty is inconsist- 
ent with everything which any one may choose to call neces- 
sity." '(Day on the Will, 89.) 

President Tappan compared this argument of Edwards to a 
logical puzzle, and illustrated it as follows: "A man in a given 
place must necessarily either' stay in that place or go away from 
that place; therefore, whether he stays or goes away, he acts 
necessarily. Now, it is necessary, in the nature of things, that 
a man should be in some place; but then it does not follow 
from this that his determination, whether to stay or go, is a 
necessary determination. His necessary condition as a body 
is entirely distinct from the question respecting the necessity 
or contingency of his volitions. And so also in respect of the 
divine foreknowledge; all human volitions are subject to the 
necessary condition of being foreknown by that Being 'who 
inhabiteth eternity; ' but this necessary condition of their ex- 
istence neither proves nor disproves the necessity or the con- 
tingency of their particular causation." (Review of Edwards' 
Inquiry, 255.) 

2. But Edwards proceeds, in the second division of his ar- 
gument, to affirm that the method of the divine foreknowledge 
must necessarily be, like all other knowledge, through evi- 



'Freedom of the Will. 287 

dence. "For a thing to be certainly known to any under- 
standing, is for it to be evident to that understanding; and for 
a thing to be evident to any understanding, is the same as for 
that understanding to see evidence of it; but no understanding, 
created or uncreated, can see evidence where there is none. 
And therefore, if there be any truth which is absolutely with- 
out evidence, that truth is absolutely unknowable, insomuch 
that it implies a contradiction to suppose that it is known. 
But if there be any future event, whose existence is contingent, 
without all necessity, the future existence of the event is abso- 
lutely without evidence." (Inquiry, Part II, ch. 12.) 

On this theory, God foresees that a man will perform cer- 
tain actions, because He knows the constitution of that man's 
mind and the motives which will be brought to bear upon it; 
in other words, He has the same kind of knowledge of future 
events that men have, and no other. It may be doubted 
whether this kind of foreknowledge is inconsistent with free- 
dom. But the usual reply to the argument is that it assumes 
too much information on our part as to the methods of God's 
knowledge. 

How can God know all that is going on in the world at any 
given moment? It is impossible for us to conceive the 
method of it, or to know anything about such a matter. Nay, 
— we cannot even conceive how a man knows a single event, 
going on before him. All knowledge is inexplicable to us. 
The method of the divine foreknowledge may be, for aught we 
know, a direct intuition for which time does not exist, no more 
involving necessity in the event foreknown, than our knowledge 
of any event at the present moment makes that event nec- 
essary. 

3. Edwards argues in the third place that to suppose that 
God foreknows contingent events, is to make his knowledge 
inconsistent with itself. For if he infallibly knows that a thing 



288 The Will. 

will be, which yet may not be (for this is implied in contin- 
gency), then he knows it to be both necessary and contingent 
at the same time. As this argument is made up out of the 
other two, so the replies to those are equally good here. God 
has endowed man with liberty; man will therefore certainly 
will, and will freely; but God may yet foreknow his volitions, 
without thereby taking away his freedom. 

Many able men have been content to accept both these 
doctrines, though apparently contradictory, each on its own 
evidence, and seek for no reconciliation. Thus John Locke 
said in one of his letters, — " I cannot make freedom in man 
consistent with omnipotence and omniscience in God, though 
I am as fully persuaded of both as of any truths I most fully 
assent to." 

DIRECT ARGUMENTS FOR FREEDOM. 

The usual direct arguments in favor of Freedom are drawn 
from consciousness, and may be either direct or indirect. 

I. DIRECT TESTIMONY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 

It is usually said that we are directly conscious of freedom. 
Some writers make this a first truth, a condition of all thought. 
Descartes said, — " It is so manifest that we possess a free will 
capable of giving or withholding its assent, that this truth must 
be reckoned among the first and most common notions which 
are born with us." Bishop Butler said, — " It may justly be 
concluded, that since the whole process of action, through 
every step of it, suspense, deliberation, inclining one way, de- 
termining, and at last doing as we determine, is as if we were 
free, — therefore we are so." And Kant said, — "Whatever in- 
dividual cannot, from the constitution of his nature, but act 
under the idea of freedom, is, on that very account, in a prac- 
tical relation free." 



Freedom of the Will. 289 

Dr. McCosh says, — " I claim for the mind a power to choose, 
and, when it chooses, a consciousness that it might choose 
otherwise. This truth is revealed to us by immediate con- 
sciousness, and is not to be set aside by any other truth what- 
ever. It is a first truth, equal to the highest, to none of which 
will it ever yield. Whatever other proposition is true, this is 
true also, that man's will is free." But on this use of the term 
Consciousness, see page 80. 

The belief in freedom is just as much a necessary and orig- 
inal principle of the mind as the belief in the uniformity of 
causation. Hence it is useless to argue against the former on 
the basis of the latter. This is arraying tw r o necessary beliefs 
against one another. Kant has worked out this opposition in 
one of his antinomies of the reason, and leaves it as insoluble, 
though elsewhere he argues in favor of human freedom. 

Most necessitarians admit the belief in freedom to be uni- 
versal, but declare it to be an illusion. Spinoza said that a 
stone flying through the air, by an impulse from without, would, 
if it had consciousness, believe itself to be flying of its own 
free will. And Schopenhauer adds that the stone would be 
right ! Leibnitz said that for man to declare himself free is as 
though the magnetic needle were to exult in pointing to the 
pole. Many similar opinions might be quoted from more re- 
cent writers. It may be admitted that when I am conscious of 
power to the contrary in my external conduct, this does not 
prove that I could act differently under all the circumstances; 
for the most important of these circumstances is my previous 
generic volition. But I know that there was a point where I 
made a free choice between certain rational ends, and could 
have chosen differently. " Let a man be required to choose 
between property and integrity, and he knows by necessity,, 
and with a conviction which nothing can strengthen and which 
nothing can shake, that he is free to choose either. The dis- 



290 The Will. 

cussions about the freedom of the will have been endless, but 
nothing has ever shaken the conviction of the race in regard 
to the elementary idea of freedom as involved in choice." 
(Hopkins, Outline Study, 231.) 

2. INDIRECT TESTIMONY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 

The great argument for human freedom is the conviction of 
obligation and responsibility. We have an irresistible native 
conviction that we are morally responsible for our actions; but 
we cannot be responsible for our actions unless we are free. 
The associationalists tell us in vain that the sense of respon- 
sibility and the feeling of remorse are illusions, due to the 
conventions of society, the instructions of infancy, the re- 
straints of public opinion; they remain ineradicable. Doubt- 
less much has by some writers been attributed to moral judg- 
ment which was really due to convention, education, and habit. 
But a distinction may usually be clearly drawn between the 
two classes of feelings. Some persons may feel more pain 
when detected in misspelling a word than when caught in a 
falsehood, but that does not prove that the two pains are of 
the same origin. We believe that consciousness makes a clear 
distinction between, for example, the disappointment one feels 
at not attaining some desired end, the indignation that arises 
on being cheated, the humiliation of having forgotten the rules 
of good manners, the shame of being found out in a crime, — 
and, on the other hand, remorse within one's own soul for 
wrong choices known only to the soul and its Maker. The 
conventional character of the former is usually dimly recognized, 
while the profound personal nature of the latter, its position at 
the very center of being, is seldom unrecognized. 

" The conceptions of praise and blame, of merit and guilt," 
says Lotze, " completely lose their characteristic meaning, if we 
apply them to things which are necessary. If these concep* 



Freedom of the Will. 291 

tions are not pure hallucinations, they imply freedom to choose 
between two possible but not necessary decisions." 

Dr. Fleming says, '-'The fact that a power has been given to 
us by which we distinguish between right and wrong implies 
that we have liberty to use it. The same thing is implied in 
the sense of obligation which accompanies the perception of 
the distinction between right and wrong. The feelings of ap- 
probation and disapprobation which we experience in our minds, 
the sentiments of praise and blame with which we contemplate 
the character and conduct of our fellow-men, and the ideas of 
merit and demerit, reward and punishment, which we cannot 
help entertaining in reference to ourselves and others, all pro- 
ceed upon the fact that man has been endowed with some 
measure of active power, and freedom in the use of it." And, 
we would add, irrespective of the origin of these feelings, sen- 
timents, and ideas; even if they were the result of associa- 
tion, the power of forming them would imply, it seems to us 
the power of making use of them. 

We append some other arguments for human freedom. 

3. UNIFORMITY OF HUMAN ACTION. 

It is argued that all law, government, society, and busi- 
ness proceed on the supposition of human freedom; that it 
would be absurd to command or forbid certain actions, if man 
were not free to do or forbear; that in society and business we 
always expect men to decide rationally and freely in favor of 
that course of action which seems best to them. 

But this argument has been adopted by recent writers on 
the other side, who say that all society, law, and government 
depend on the efficacy of motives; that the law affixes a pen- 
alty to certain actions as a proper and certain means of pre- 
venting such actions, and not as an appeal to human freedom. 
"All human institutions, as well as human conduct, are practi- 



292 The Will. 

cally founded on a recognition, implicit or explicit, of the 
reign of law in the province of mind; education, the penal 
code, social regulations, legislative enactments, rest upon this 
basis, and emancipation from their sanctions is treated as crime 
or insanity. The plain design of these enactments is to con- 
strain people to act in a certain way, by supplying the motives 
which shall determine the will." (Maudsley, Physiology of 
Mind, 411.) 

It may be replied to this, that those who enact these laws 
and regulations, and undertake to enforce them, are at least 
free in adopting such a plan. But a more complete answer 
has been suggested already in the remark of Dr. Hopkins, that 
executive volitions are the object of human government, while 
supreme choices are the object of divine law. The latter de- 
mands that the heart be right, and expects the actions to be 
right in consequence. The former cannot reach the heart, but 
addresses itself only to the external volitions. "There will be 
a radical difference between the idea of freedom as consisting 
in the power of choice, and in the power to carry out our 
choices. The one is absolute, and so belongs to us that to be 
deprived of it we must be destroyed. The other is contingent, 
and we can be deprived of it by accident or disease, or by the 
will of others." (Hopkins.) 

The common herd of men are too apt to abandon the privi- 
lege of rational choice, and permit themselves to be guided by 
the solicitations of immediate desire. Law and penalty are in- 
tended for such. Those who have made a rational supreme 
choice and continue in it do not come into conflict with any 
reasonable enactment. It is thus that we understand Christ's 
declaration, that he came not to call the righteous but sinners 
to repentance. And also the Apostle Paul's declaration, "ye 
are not under the law, but under grace." " But now we are 
delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; 



Freedom of the Will. 



2 93 



that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the old- 
ness of the letter." We believe also that the great Apostle 
recognized the two kinds of volition. " I delight in the law of 
God after the inward man; but I see another law in my mem- 
bers, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me 
into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." 
" Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not 
attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because 
they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the 
law." There is a deeper obedience and morality than of the 
outward conduct; it is that of the heart. 

4. power of rational conduct. 

It is urged that man is free because he has the power to 
tbrm and carry out a plan or system of conduct. Dr. Flem- 
ing says, — "The thousands who have wisely formed and 
steadily kept their aim through life are so many witnesses to 
prove that man is not the passive subject of some dark and 
invincible necessity, but that his happiness and misery are in 
his own hand, and that he has not only understanding to dis- 
cern between good and evil, but liberty to choose, and power 
to adhere to that choice, till it be carried out to its final and 
happy accomplishment." Rational volition or choice implies 
freedom; but it does not follow, as often asserted, that because 
it is free it is therefore capricious, arbitrary, and unreasonable. 
On the contrary, as we have already shown, rational action is 
necessarily the most uniform, reliable, and uncapricious of all 
action. All rational beings, if they use their privilege and act 
rationally, would act precisely alike in the same circumstances, 
provided they all had intellects just alike, with which to per- 
ceive motives or ends of action, and feelings just alike, to be 
aroused by them. 



294 The Will. 

IV. LIMITATIONS OF FREEDOM. 

The limitations of Freedom of the Will which are usually 
mentioned are not properly limitations of choice, but rather 
restrictions of physical or social action. Free agency cannot 
be complete in this sense, while one is yet under the rule of 
his parents, or when he is in the power of a tyrannical govern- 
ment, or when disease or accident has prostrated the. body or 
impaired the brain. Such limitations might be called object- 
ive. 

The real limitations of choice may be called subjective. 
One cannot will things impossible, choose between ends not 
presented to the intellect, or will contradictions. One who has 
abdicated the privilege of rational choice and lived long with- 
out it, has strong habits and associations to overcome before he 
can enter upon a new rational and moral life. 

A curious limitation of freedom is laid down, in connection 
with a remarkable and important .admission, by Mr. Malcolm 
Guthrie, who, though he has written three volumes against 
Herbert Spencer, is himself a decided evolutionist. 

"The great practical question is this; — Has man the power 
of choice amongst motives? Has he the vaunted power of 
self-rule, and can he cultivate it? We can only reply that, as 
a matter of fact, some have it and some have it not; that some 
have it in some respects and not in others. As a matter of 
possibility, most men may attain in a considerable degree to 
the power of self-rule by judicious self-culture. . . . Some 
feeble minds and flighty or impassioned natures, as well as 
idiots, may not be able to reach it, and some fools may lose it 
after they have got it; but as a general rule, a high degree of 
self-rule may by most people be attained, and the possession of 
it is for the most part happiness." 



A New and Complete 

INDEX. 



Absolute, the Monistic, 109. 39, 40; on binocular vision 49, 

Abstraction 174. touch 51, feeling 60, causation 

^Esthetics 223 to 231. 101, Uniformity 102, 187, 

Affections, the, 250, 251, 257. identity-similarity 115, 118, 
Allen, (Grant,) on pleasure perception 143, realism and 
215, 219, aesthetics 224. nominalism 176, the syllogism 

Altruism 251. 183, induction 185, the Ludi- 

Anger 237. crous 241, volition 263-5, de- 

Animals, the Lower, 191; their sire 274, responsibility 282. 
sensations 18, 34, judgment of Bascom (Pres. John) on consci- 
distance 45, consciousness 78, ousness in the lower animals 
knowledge of space 91, of time 78, their knowledge of space 
95, of identity-similarity 114; 91, of time 95, language 192, 
their reasoning 179, stupidity instinct 195; volition 263. 
195; nature of their minds 205. Beauty 223 — 231. 
Antinomies, Kant's, 145, 289. Berkeley 138, on vision 24, 47, 
Appetite 244. theory of matter 73, 139. 

A Priori Concepts 85, 117. Bowen (Prof. Francis), Kant's 

Aristotle 129; on qualities of theory of space 89; Descartes 
matter 69, association 155, the 131, Malebranche 135. 
syllogism 181, 183, pleasure Bowne (Prof. B. P.) on Kent's 
217; his theory of the Comic thing-in-itself 74, monism 109, 
adopted and defended 240. sensationalism 120, concepts 

Association 154; of sensations 175, brain and mind 204. 
15, 22,47,54, 56, 58; does not Brown (Dr.T.) 141; onpercep- 
account for Cause 103, nor tion 41, causation 101-4, asso- 
perception 125, nor induction ciaton 155, 230, the feelings 
190; in brutes and in men 193. 210, volition 265. 
Associational philosophy 140. Burke, on emotion 234, sym- 
Attention 64. pathy 254. 

Axiom of the syllogism 181, of Butler, on freedom 288. 

induction 187. Calderwood, on sensation 17, 

Bacon on design in nature no. attention 65, identity 116, in- 
Bain (Dr. A.) 142; on percep- tuition 122, imagination 164, 
tion of distance 44, 47, of form induction 175. 



298 Index. 

Carpenter (Dr. W. B.), on Fear 236. 

sensation 17, solidity 46, local- Feeling, uses of the term, 59, 

ization 55, attention 66, the feeling and feelings 208— 213. 

feeling of moral beauty 227. Ferrier (Prof. James) 75. 
Causation 97 — no. Fiske (John) on causality 102, 

Choice or volition 261—267. similarity 117, Cosmic Philos- 
Coensesthesis or vital sense 130. ophy 144, induction 186, mat- 
Colloid state of bodies 27. ter and mind 205. 
Color, sensations of, 35-6. Fleming's Vocabulary of Phil- 
Comic, the Idea of, 240. osophy on feeling 60, space 88, 
Comte, on consciousness 77. emotion 231, appetite 245, mo- 
Concept, a mental product 174. tive 270, freedom 284, 291-3. 
Conceptualism 179. Form , how perceived, 38. 
Consciousness 74, authority of Fowler on iniuction 185. 

80, uses of the word 83. Freedom of the will 276 — 295. 

Criteria of first principles 123. Guthrie (Malcolm) 294. 
Darwin on emotion 233, 237. Hallucinations 59, 162. 
Day (Pres. Jeremiah) on mo- Hamilton (Sir Wm.) 145, on 

tives 269, 270, freedom 285. feeling 62, qualities of matter 
Deduction and Induction 180. 71, consciousness 83, space 85, 
Descartes 131, on qualities of 89, causation 101, 106, relativ- 

matter 69, consciousness 81, ity 113, perception 128, associ- 

freedom of the will 288. ation 155, imagination 163, the 

Design or teleology no. syllogism 181. 

Desire as feeling 246, desire as Happiness, desire of, 246. 

motive 274. Hearing, the sense of, 30. 

Drbal on vision 48, localization Hegel 139, his theory of beau- 

57, feeling 61, attention 64, na- ty adopted 225. 

ture of the mind 202. Helmholtz on sound 31. 

Dreams 91, explained, 159. Herbart 134, on sensation 61, 

Edwards (Jonathan) on motive space 88, perception 134. 

268, necessity 283-5. Hickok on the will 267-8. 

Emotion 231 — 243. Hobbes on laughter 241, defi- 

Empirical philosophy 118, 140. nition of the will 265. 
Euken on teleology in, nee- Hopkins (Pres. Mark) on per- 

essary ideas 120. ception 41, 52, causation 103, 

Everett (Prof. C. C.) on exec- induction 189, pleasure 216, 

utive volition 263. the affections 250, volition 261, 

Expectation 88, 239. 262,-4-7, freedom 280, 290-2. 

External world, how known, 39, Hume 139, on substance 73, 

52. See also under each sense, causation 1 01, association 155. 



Index. 



299 



Huxley on sensation 15; his 
pseudo-idealism 140. 

Hypnotism 162. 

Idealism as to perception 128.. 

Identity and similarity 112. 

Illusions and hallucinations 58. 

Imagination 163. 

Induction 185; not the same as 
associative expectation 190. 

Instinct automatic 193. 

Intuitive ideas 117. 

James (Prof. W.), emotion 234. 

Jevons on the concept 175. 

Judgment as a mental power 172 

Kant 139, on substance 73, 
space 88, time 93, the Judg- 
ment 17 1, aesthetic 223, free- 
will 288. 

Knowledge, desire of, 248. 

Laughter 240. 

Le Conte (Prof. Joseph) on 
sight 34, primary colors, 36, 
binocular vision 46-8. 

Leibnitz 133, on space 88, his 
monadology 107, theodicy 134, 
necessity and freedoom 289. 

Lewes on causation 105, intui- 
tions 119, induction 189, mind 
of the brutes 192. 

Localization of sensations 54. 

Locke 136, on qualities of mat- 
ter 70, consciousness 76, space 
85, identity n 6, intuitions 117, 
perception 137, reasoning 171. 

Lotze 135, on philosophy 9, 
sensation 16, 19, perception 22, 
taste 28, vision 43, muscular 
sensation 53, feeling 61, im- 
penetrability 72, qualities of 
matter 74, space 88, 90, time 
93, causation 98, monism 109, 
identity 112, concepts 174, 



universals 177, materalism 201, 
the soul 206, feeling 212, plea- 
sure 217, volition 264, freedom 
279, raiional choice 283. 

Mahaffy on Descartes 131. 

Maine de Biran on cause 105. 

Malebranche, notice of, 135. 

Maudsley on emotion 232-5, 
freedom 292. 

Mathematical reasoning 184. 

Matter, qualities of 67, nature 
of 71, 134, 140, 202; Mill's 
view 142, materialist view2o 1. 

McCosh (Pres. James) on cau- 
sation 103, relativity 113, con- 
ceptualism 179, universals 180, 
freedom of the will 289. 

Memory 95, 147. 

Mill (John Stuart) 141, on sub- 
stance 73, causation 102, uni- 
formity 103, relativity 113, in- 
tuitions 119, association 120, 
definition of matter 142, syllo- 
gism 181, induction 185. 

Mind, sensational theory of 80, 
199, its unity etc., 202-3. 

Morris (Prof. G. S.) 119. 

Motives and volition 268. 

Muscular sensation 52. 

Newton on space and time 96, 
gravitation 168, induction 185, 

Nominalism 177-8. 

Occam's razor 107. 

Odyle, Reichenbach's 67. 

Pantheism 202-7. 

Parcimony, see Occam's razor. 

Perception 14, 22, and under 
each special sense; of direction 
43, distance 44, solidity 46, 55; 
errors in 58, 66, ratio with feel- 
ing 62; of matter 73; uncon- 
scious 81; necessary elements 



3°° 



Index. 



84, under relations of space 
87, causation 98, identity 113; 
theories of 125-6. 

Plato 129. 

Pleasure and pain 214. 

Porter (Pres. Noah) 145, on 
perception, 33, 127, 146, local- 
ization 57, feeling 60, attention 
65, substance 74, conscious- 
ness 77, 80, S^, space, etc., 92, 
95, causation 100, necessary 
principles 12 1-4, imagination 
164, induction 188. 

Pre-established harmony 109. 

Psychology denned 10. 

Qualities of matter 67, 73. 

Realism 128, 176. 

Reasoning power, the 171, 130. 

Reid 144, on perception 22, 
time 95, freedom 285. 

Relativity of knowledge 113. 

Religious feeling 259. 

Ribot on the will 279. 

Ruskin on sight-perception 47. 

Schopenhauer on space and 
time 95, the will 289. 

Self 79, self-love 255. 

Sensation 15 — 24, feeling in 59. 

Sensational philosophy 140. 

Sensations classified 20; associ- 
ation of, 24, projection of, 54, 
rhythm of, 54; unconscious 82. 

Sensibility or feeling 209. 

Shakespeare on memory 158, 
imagination 165, feeling 242. 

Sidgwick on predication 182. 



Sight 33, in aesthetics 220. 

Smell, sense of, 25. 

Solidity, perception of, 46. 

Smith (Adam), sympathy, 254. 

Somnambulism 91, 152, 161. 

Space 84 — 92. 

Spencer (Herbert), 143, on 
sensation 16—19, vision 42, 
touch 49, feeling, 64, atten- 
tion 66, qualities of matter 72, 

• consciousness 77, 83, space 
88, necessary principles 119, 
the unknowable 144, memory 
158, syllogism 182, pleasure 
216, emotion 233, laughter 
240, love 252, sympathy 253, 
self-love 255, altruism 275. 

Spinoza 136, on volition 265, 
freedom 289. 

Substance and attribute 73. 

Syllogism 180-2. 

Sympathy 253. 

Taine (H. A.) on vision 41, on 
perception 57. 

Tappan on necessity 286. 

Taste, the sense of, 27. 

Thing-in-itself of Kant 74. 

Time 92, time and space 96. 

Touch, the sense of, 49. 

Ueberweg, the syllogism, 183. 

Ventriloquism 32. 

Vision 33, in the lower animals 
34, 42, 45, binocular 46, 48. 

Volition 260 — 265. 

Weber on touch 50. 

Will, the, 260 — 295. 



